After all, Marni was a stranger. And no one in this house had been what she would call friendly.
Neither the crying nor the rocking stopped.
Marni stepped around in front of the woman. “’Lilly?”
Lilly slowly raised her head, her rocking motion slowed. The storm outside lit her pale heart-shaped face and Marni saw what the woman clutched in her arms. A rag doll, its face worn and grayed, its yarn hair matted with age. Lilly glanced down at the doll crushed in her arms. For a moment, she made no sound. Then her eyes swam with tears and great, huge sobs racked her body.
Marni knelt and opened her arms to the woman. The rag doll tumbled to the floor as Lilly fell into Marni’s embrace. ‘There, there,”’ Marni whispered, sympathizing with the woman’s pain. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like losing a child. “It’s all right.”
As the crying subsided, Marni heard the scrape of a boot sole on the wooden floor. She looked up with a start, not sure who she expected to see.
Even in shadow and even if he hadn’t had the crutches, she would have known Chase Calloway. He filled a doorway. Not only with his body but with his anger.
He stood, watching her, suspicion in every line of his body. She could feel the heat of his gaze on her as surely as she could feel the reproach in that gaze. She glanced down at Lilly, wondering what made Chase so angry with her, that he thought she was pregnant or that he thought she was trying to trap him? When she glanced up again, he was gone.
Marni didn’t know how long she held Lilly. The crying had stopped, but the slim arms still held her tightly, as if Marni were Lilly’s only anchor in some blizzard far worse than the one outside this room.
After a while, Marni looked down to find Lilly had dropped off to sleep on her shoulder. Carefully, Marni laid her back into the rocker and covered her with a knitted afghan from the couch. Lilly whimpered softly but continued to sleep the sleep of the dead. Or the inebriated.
Marni switched off the lamp and left her in front of the bank of windows and the storm, hoping Lilly slept off the wine before she attempted the stairs.
On the way to her room, Marni stopped at the library and quickly found Pride and Prejudice. As she turned out the light and headed for the stairs, she told herself she was ready at last for some sleep of her own.
But back in bed, Marni lay, listening, waiting for Chase to come storming in to admonish her for interfering in family business. After a while, when she heard no sound, she opened the soft, worn volume to chapter one, realizing it had been years since she’d read this book.
The first line jumped off the page at her. Marni groaned as she thought of Chase Calloway. Who was this impossible single man in possession of a good fortune her twin had fallen in love with? Certainly not a man in want of a wife—or a baby, as Elise had been led to believe. That was one truth at least Marni acknowledged.
A few pages into the book, she heard Chase return to his room, heard the clomp of the crutches as he approached the door adjoining their rooms. She held her breath. Then she heard him lock his side of the door. Instead of relief, Marni felt a wave of anger. Did Chase think he had to lock his door to protect himself from her? Did he really think she’d come to his room tonight and throw herself at him? The man couldn’t be that big a fool, could he?
Tossing the book on the night table, she threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed, set on sharing a few choice words with Mr. Chase Calloway, even if it meant through a three-inch-thick door.
The lights flickered, and before her feet could touch the floor, went out. Marni held her breath, waiting for them to come back on. They didn’t. And she had a feeling they wouldn’t. As Vanessa had reminded her earlier, the electricity often went out during snowstorms in Montana. This far from civilization, it could be out for hours. Even days. Great. And just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse.
A thud came from the adjoining room and Chase swore loudly after stumbling into what sounded like a piece of good-size furniture. She smiled, ashamed but no less amused. Served him right for being such a jerk.
Content, she slipped back under the covers. The embers in the fireplace cast a pale patina over the room. If she had been anywhere else, she might have thought it cozy. Outside, the snow fell in a dense suffocating silence. Marni watched it for a few moments, trying not to think about the other people in this house. The night seemed colder, Marni thought, or maybe it was just knowing the electricity had gone off. She felt alone and far from home. At least Elise and the baby were fine, she assured herself. Then she closed her eyes, hoping for the oblivion of sleep.
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