Gayle Wilson - Echoes in the Dark

Suddenly, she knew she didn’t want him pushing Andre to entertain her. It wasn’t necessary, and it was somehow insulting.

“Tomorrow,” she said, rising. She hoped she wasn’t being rude, but she was tired, and she wanted to sort out the impressions of the crowded day. “If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to turn in. I was up very early this morning, and in spite of the nap, I still feel the effects. Forgive me, please, and good night.”

Both men had risen automatically, but it was the older who again commanded.

“Of course. Andre, would you show Ms. Evans to her room? I hope you sleep well.”

“Good night, Caroline,” Suzanne spoke, still curled comfortably in her chair. “I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll get started on the endless grind. I’m really very glad you’re here.”

Caroline followed Andre through the French doors and across the tile to the stairs. Neither was aware of the angry voice that spoke behind them on the patio.

“What the hell are you playing at? Blindman’s buff? Take you in to dinner. ” Suzanne’s voice was rich with ridicule. “I almost threw up. My God, Julien, what kind of act was that?”

He laughed in the darkness and stood, holding out his hand for her. She finally took his fingers, and he pulled her up. They walked arm in arm to the edge of the patio, but she wasn’t the guide this time.

“I thought it was wonderfully affecting. A moment full of poignancy. Personally, I was deeply touched,” he said, smiling, but the mockery was all self-directed.

“Damn it, Julien, you explain what you’re doing, or I swear I quit. I swear I’m on the next flight to Paris. You almost knocked the poor girl down.”

“The poor girl?” he questioned softly. “I thought you didn’t want her here. I thought your sympathies were all for me, your concern.”

“When I think you need it. Not when you’re putting on some helpless blind-man routine for the tourists.”

“And how did the tourists respond?” he said softly. She knew suddenly from something in that carefully emotionless voice she was used to reading how much he wanted to know about their guest’s reaction to his blindness, and to know that, he needed her help.

“She did all right. I’d say she even...”

“Even what?” he asked finally when she refused to go on.

“She watched your hands. At dinner.”

“And?”

She could feel the tension in the hard body beside her, leaning lazily against the stone railings of the patio.

“She was all right. It didn’t make her nervous. As a matter of fact, I’d give her an eight, maybe even a nine.” They had devised the code years before, rating reactions to his blindness.

They didn’t speak for a long time, and in the silence she could hear the surf booming against the rocks. Like a heartbeat.

“Take me up to bed, Suzanne,” he said softly, hugging her small body close.

“You go to hell, you bastard. You always get your way. You go to hell,” she said.

She could hear his laughter following her inside and up the stairs to her room. She didn’t know why she was so angry with him, but thinking about that dark laughter, it was a long time before she slept.

Caroline awoke suddenly in the cloying darkness and sat upright in the tangled sheets. A nightmare. It had been so long. The stresses of the day, she supposed. She took a deep breath and found she could smell, almost taste, the salt, the flowers from the garden below, the heat of the sun leaving the tiles beneath her windows.

It had been a mistake to leave them open. She was gathering the energy to climb out of the clinging sheets and close them when she heard it again. The sound that had dragged her, panting and shivering, from a too-sound sleep. The faint mewling cry of a newborn. She had heard babies cry through the years, and none of them ever sounded like this. So lost. So sick. As the last echo died, she buried her face in her hands. Not again, she prayed. Not again, dear God. Please, not now.

She waited, hoping, and after so many long dark minutes that she had begun once more to breathe, deep shuddering breaths of relief, the wail whispered again. Not through the open windows, but from the hall outside her room.

She had the door open before the sound had stopped, but in the darkness of the long hall she had no idea of its direction. Here there was no echo to guide her. It had stopped as soon as she opened the door, not fading into the blackness, but cut off.

She cried out against the unfairness of it. Realizing where she was, she pressed both hands against her mouth, attempting to suppress the racking sobs that always left her exhausted, incapable of any rational thought. Not again, she begged, feeling the blackness of her fear close around her.

“Caroline,” the voice spoke softly beside her, “what’s wrong? Why are you crying? What’s happened?”

She tried to regain control, to answer his concern, but she was too far into the panic the dream always caused.

Finally hard masculine arms enclosed her, offering the timeless comfort of human closeness that penetrates even the deepest hysteria, and she leaned into the warmth, the alive solidness of his chest. She let him rock her gently until the sobbing eased. Until the blackness retreated again to a manageable distance. She could smell the cologne he used and, underlying that, the scent of his body, warm and hard against her cheek. That evidence of life and sanity overwhelmed her with gratitude, so that she rubbed her face against the smoothness of his chest, turned her head to savor the reality of muscle and skin.

She was aware of the deep breath he took, and then he turned her face up to his and touched her trembling lips with his own. She wanted that touch. Her mouth opened automatically under the invasion of his tongue. She was surprised at the depth of her desire. She of the frozen emotions, the frigid indifference, wanted the lips that were moving over hers so skillfully, evoking memories that made her knees weaken and her hands clutch his shoulders.

He broke the contact, lifting his head, trying to see her face in the moon-touched darkness of the hallway. “What’s wrong?” he asked again, gathering her close.

She swallowed against the dryness. “A nightmare,” she whispered.

“That must have been one hell of a nightmare,” he said, smiling. “Not that I’m not grateful. Do you have these often?”

She was aware of the sexual teasing, the gentle invitation cloaked in the question, but she shook her head, still held safely against his body. “Not in such a long time. I thought they were gone. It’s been so long.”

They both were aware of the trembling despair of the last phrase, and his arms tightened comfortingly.

“You’re just tired—a long flight and then a bunch of strangers, maybe some of us stranger than others,” he teased gently. “Just tired.”

She began to breathe against the rhythmic caress of his hands moving soothingly over her back. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps she had been asleep, still dazed from her exhaustion.

There was no sound now in the hallway. No sound from her open door but the boom of the surf against the rocks. His brother had been right. It was becoming a familiar background, as comforting as the hands against her spine. She was enfolded in its sound as Andre was enfolding her in his arms, arms that felt hard enough to protect her from any nightmare.

Embarrassed, she moved finally out of their circle, and he let her go. There was enough light now to see the smile he directed at her. She touched his face, unable to express the gratitude she felt.

“I’m all right. I promise. It was just a bad dream.”