She exhaled in relief. Despite all the doubts she’d been having about Dylan today, she honestly believed him when he’d said he’d never slept with a Durand employee before. Alice was the exception to the rule. The reason for his making her
the exception was what created this feeling of rising panic in her stomach. Unfortunately, there was no way she could bear her soul to Kuvi about Addie Durand.
“This thing between you two must be really unique, then. It is, isn’t it?” Kuvi asked, still studying Alice’s face. Despite her teasing, Kuvi was brilliant and a shrewd observer of character.
If only you knew how unique Dylan’s and my connection really is.
Alice nodded. “I tried to keep away from him. I just . . . couldn’t,” she said, throwing up her hands, disgusted by her failure. “I’m crazy, aren’t I? For going to him every night?”
“No,” Kuvi said with a sense of having just made a final judgment after deliberations. “It may not be wise. But I have a feeling this is a rare type of attraction . . . something too powerful to deny. I caught just a whiff of it that night at the castle, and even that was pretty convincing.” She picked up another throw pillow from the couch and began to turn in it in her hands distractedly. “Some things are bigger than logic, and karma is one of them.”
“I don’t believe in karma or fate.”
Kuvi shrugged. “What do you believe in, then?”
“Myself.” She sighed heavily, feeling like a bundle of stretched threads that were about to break. “Or at least I used to.”
“Anything that makes you second-guess yourself deserves some serious examination. So . . . are you going? Tonight?” Kuvi asked cautiously.
Alice studied her friend’s face. Kuvi had a point.
“No,” she said suddenly with more confidence than she felt. “You’re right.”
Kuvi blinked. “I wasn’t trying to make a point. I was just asking a simple question!”
“But you’re right about giving some serious consideration to anything that’s making me second-guess myself,” Alice said determinedly, grasping onto Kuvi’s vague insinuation that she should be cautious about her relationship with Dylan. She stood and tossed the pillow she’d been clutching onto the couch.
“I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. It’s been an exhausting day,” she said, heading toward the bathroom.
“You’re really just going to leave Dylan Fall standing there in the woods, waiting for you?” Kuvi demanded, sounding amazed.
“You said I needed space to examine this thing with him,” Alice said over her shoulder.
“I never said that. But if you aren’t going to meet up with Fall tonight, maybe that’s what you needed to hear.”
Alice plunged into the bathroom, too overwhelmed to say exactly what she needed at that moment.
Too overwhelmed to know.
SHE checked the bedside clock as the illuminated dial changed from 12:02 to 12:03. She’d only slept in the counselors’ cabin that first week during her training, before she’d taken up with Dylan. Kuvi was silent in sleep. The complete quiet unnerved her, for some reason. It seemed to increase the volume level of the thoughts in her head to shouts. She’d lain in bed for the past two hours, the room draped in darkness, wakeful and alert.
Miserable.
What was Dylan thinking about her refusal to meet him at their assigned spot in the woods? Every minute of the past two and a half hours had been spent asking herself that question, over and over. The fact that she couldn’t fasten on any sure answer only added to her insomnia.
She flipped over to her other side, leaning up on her elbow to restlessly punch at a flattened pillow. She paused at a squeaking noise, going on high alert with her fist planted deep in the feathers.
The outer screen door gave another screech. Her heart jumped into her throat at the sound of the lock sliding back. She heard the soft sigh of the front door opening and then the quiet thud as it shut again. Alice sat up in bed, her back ramrod straight, prepared to fly off the far side of the bed.
The overhead light came on.
Dylan stood just inside the room, his hand still on the light switch. In his other hand she noticed he held a ring of keys. Of course he had a key to this cabin. He owned this property, didn’t he?
They’d been having a cool spell. He wore a pair of jeans and a soft-looking denim shirt that stood in marked contrast to his long hard body. His jaw was shadowed with whiskers, giving him that dark piratical look she loved, but which also intimidated her. His mouth was pressed into a grim line.
Her stunned brain left her temporarily mute.
“Let’s go,” he said simply.