False Family

No one had seen the car until it ran Sara down, and no one knew what happened to it afterward. Hit-and-run. And it had left Sara alive…but just barely. When she’d been taken to the hospital, they’d found compound fractures of her forearm and thigh. By far the most serious injury had been the head wound. She’d undergone emergency surgery in the small hours of the morning to relieve pressure on her brain and the doctors were guardedly optimistic.

Mallory had stayed until morning, when Sara’s parents arrived. They had been devastated, and when Mallory was leaving, they were sitting on either side of their unconscious daughter, holding her hands, talking softly to her, encouraging her to come back to them.

For one fleeting moment, Mallory had almost felt envious of poor Sara. Mallory had never known her father. He’d walked out on her mother before Mallory had been born. And the memories of her mother were vague, distorted remembrances of a five-year-old child. Dark hair, a soft voice, eyes touched with a sadness that never quite disappeared. Nothing substantial.

And Mallory knew if she was in the bed instead of Sara, no one would be crying for her. She had no one. Henry Welting had said she was “basically alone,” but the reality was, she was completely alone. Just as alone as she was on this road right now. She couldn’t see any lights, and only a handful of cars had passed her since she left Napa.

Her headlights cut into the darkness and rain, and she caught a glimpse of a sign ahead. As she slowed, she could barely make out dark lettering on an old-fashioned wooden road sign—Reece Place. With a sigh of relief, she made the left turn onto an even-narrower road that angled upward. A canopy of ancient trees on either side bent under the force of the wind and rain.

The road curved to the left and Mallory shifted to a lower gear to negotiate it, but even so, she felt the tires on the car spin for a second before they caught traction again. Yet before she could get the car fully under control, the road cut sharply to the right and as the car went into the curve, Mallory knew she wasn’t going to make it.

In that split second, the car began to drift sideways on the slick pavement. Mallory felt the loss of control, the futility of pressing on the brakes and turning the wheel. She felt the stunning terror of knowing she could die. She felt sadness for what might have been, a sadness she had never let herself feel before.

Then the impact came. The car hit something solid, stopping with a bone-jarring suddenness, and the seat belt bit into her shoulder as Mallory felt her head jerk sideways.

Then it was all over. With the engine dead, the car tilted to the right, sinking slowly into the soft shoulder of the road. Finally it settled, and Mallory was thankful to be alive. The windshield wipers kept trying to clear the glass of the sheeting rain. The headlights were at a skewed angle, shooting up into the night, and the strength of the storm made the car shudder.

She slowly released her grip on the steering wheel, fumbled with the safety belt, then sank back into the seat. Looking to her right, she could make out the dark smear of grass and leaves pressed against the window. She might have survived, but the car wasn’t going anywhere. She glanced at the dash clock. She had twenty minutes to get to Saxon Mills’s house. There was no way she could make it.

“Merry Christmas to me,” she muttered, feeling as if this gift of a job had been snatched right out of her grasp.

She closed her eyes, trying to figure out what to do. She didn’t have any idea how far she’d have to walk through the storm to get to Mills Way. But if she sat here and waited for help, there was no guarantee anyone would come along tonight.

She looked out at the night and faced her options. She could feel the wind pushing at the car, and the rain seemed to be even heavier now. She turned off the headlights, then switched the key to the accessory position and flipped on the radio.

The strains of country music filled the confines of the small car, and for a while Mallory waited. But when the weather forecast came on, she reached to turn up the volume.

“And now for the Bay Area forecast. After a long drought that has forced water rationing for the past two years, the city is being deluged by a storm coming from the north, bringing torrential rain, winds gusting to forty miles an hour and temperatures in the midforties. Flooding has been reported in the low areas of the city, and mud slides have closed several roads leading into the valleys to the east and into Mill Valley to the north. With only scattered gaps in the weather front, the forecast is for a cold and very wet holiday season.”

Mallory reached for the radio button and turned it off. A miserable twenty-four hours was getting worse by the minute. Sara’s accident, the restaurant giving her no guarantee she could get her old job when she got back in two weeks, and now the job with Saxon Mills, which was dissolving right before her eyes.

She glanced at the dash clock. She had fifteen minutes to get to the meeting. Fifteen minutes. She sat forward and snapped on the headlights again. She could barely make out the fact that she was half on and half off the road. That road lead to Mills Way, and Mills Way led to Saxon Mills’s house. In the next second, she made up her mind.

She wasn’t going to let the Mills job go that easily. She had a raincoat, an umbrella and shoes that wouldn’t be any worse if they got wet. No, the umbrella was gone. She could remember it lying on the road near Sara, torn and flattened. She pushed that thought out of her mind.

She had a hood on her raincoat, and it didn’t matter what she looked like for the interview. Saxon Mills would just have to understand. As long as she made it. She turned the key, leaving it in the ignition, then tugged her hood up over her hair. Hesitating for only a moment as wind again shook the car, she faced the fact that walking was her only chance of salvaging anything with Saxon Mills.

She took her wallet out of her purse, shoved the purse under the front seat and tucked the wallet in her coat pocket. Then she pushed the door open against the wind and scrambled out. Her feet struck the edge of the pavement, and she levered herself up, ignoring the rain stinging her face until she was on her feet. Then the force of the wind snatched the door out of her grasp and slammed it with a resounding crack.

As Mallory turned, her feet slipped on the slick ground and she grabbed at the car to steady herself. She turned her back against the wind to look up the road ahead of her, then started off. But she hadn’t taken more than two steps on the asphalt when she heard the roar of an engine behind her.

Filled with relief that someone had come, she spun around, and the hood of her coat was wrenched off her hair by the wind. As the headlights blinded her, and the squeal of brakes filled the air along with the scent of burning rubber, the relief was changed to fear in a single heartbeat. The car was coming right at her.

CHAPTER TWO

Everything happened so quickly. There were blinding lights, the squeal of brakes and horror surging within her. As if the world had been reduced to slow motion, Mallory saw the headlights dip down from the force of the brakes grabbing the pavement, then, miraculously, the car stopped, inches from the back of her car, not from her.

She heard the engine throbbing, and the smell of burned rubber was in the air. Relief swelled up inside her as she realized the driver hadn’t been heading for her. The things that had happened in the last twenty-four hours had left her nerves raw.

Mallory gulped air into her tight lungs and rubbed her trembling hands on her raincoat, almost giddy from relief. As she fumbled with her hood, trying to tug it back over her now-soaked hair, she heard a car door slam and saw movement. A hulking shadow emerged from the idling car, then came toward her.

The driver cut in front of the headlights, and Mallory could make out a tall man in a dark coat, carrying an umbrella. He strode directly for her. Nerves that were painfully jittery tingled as she was struck by how vulnerable she was on a dark, deserted road, at night, alone, with no protection at all.

By the time the idea of getting back in her car and locking the door had formed, the man was right in front of her. She pushed her hands into her pockets and curled them into tight fists to stop their trembling, while she carefully watched the stranger silhouetted in the headlights.

“What in the hell’s going on?” The voice that came out of the stormy night was rough, deep and angry. “I didn’t see you until I was almost on you!”

“I missed the curve, and the car…it went out of control. That’s where it ended up.”

“Did you hit something?” he asked, his body partially blocking the lights. The darkness seemed to surround the man, and the driving rain blurred everything.

“I lost control, and the car fishtailed. It sank in the mud on the shoulder.” She found herself talking quickly, as nervousness grew in her. “It’s stuck, and I thought I might just as well walk for help than sit here in the storm. I didn’t think anyone would be coming this way.”

“Where did you think you were walking to on this road?”

“I was looking for Mills Way.”

He took a step closer to her, and she had to fight the urge to match that step backward to keep what buffer she could between them. “Mills Way?”

Cold rain found its way under her collar and trickled down her back, sending a chill through her. “Yes, I’m supposed to be meeting someone who lives on that road.”

“Saxon Mills.” It wasn’t a question, just a statement.

“How did—?”

“There’s only one house on that road.” The man shifted, and the headlights shone directly on her once again. Although she couldn’t see his eyes or even his expression, she knew he was staring at her…hard. She had a flashing memory of the man at the theater the night before and how thankful she’d been that she hadn’t met him on a dark, deserted road.

The chill in her deepened. Her thoughts were going off on tangents that made no sense, and she narrowed her eyes against the glare. “I just want to get to that road.”

“I could have killed you,” he finally muttered.

Mallory felt her chest tighten, the memory of Sara lying on the rainy street so vivid that she ached. She’d been through too much, and her imagination was running wild in the most horrible way tonight. She pushed her hands deeper into her pockets and hunched her shoulders a bit as the rain beat down. “It’s my fault. I never thought—”

“You should have put on your hazard lights. Anyone coming around that curve could plow right into your car.”

“I didn’t think about that, either.” The temperature felt as if it had dropped ten degrees in the last few minutes. “I just need to get to Saxon Mills’s home. Is there any way you could take me to a pay phone or to a house where I could call from?”

She didn’t expect him to say, “I can take you all the way to Mills’s estate.”

As soon as he agreed, Mallory realized it hadn’t been the smartest thing to say to a total stranger—offering to get into his car and drive off into the night. She tried to backtrack a bit. “It might be better if I stay with my car, and you can call a garage to come and pull me out of the mud.”

“You can do that, but I’m afraid this isn’t the city. There’s no garage that would be open now. But if you want to wait here, I’ll call when I get to a phone and maybe you’ll get lucky. If not, lock the doors and someone will be here in the morning.”

Mallory had taken care of herself since she was barely a teenager, and maybe she hadn’t made the best decisions in the world, but she had often survived on her instinct. And right now her instinct for survival told her to take the ride, thank the man, get to Mills’s house and try to salvage the job if she could. “I don’t want to wait here all night,” she admitted. “I’ll take the ride.”

“Then put on your emergency lights and let’s get going.”

Mallory didn’t have to be told twice. She went to her car, opened the door, reached inside, pushed the button for the emergency lights, and they began to flash brilliant yellow into the rain and night. She closed the door, and as she turned, she stumbled on the slippery ground.

The man had her by the upper arm in the next second, his strong fingers pressing through the cotton of her soaked raincoat and steadying her. Mallory felt as if one of the bolts of lightning had shot through her at the contact, then he was urging her toward his car. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, close to her side.

By moving quickly ahead of him, she broke the contact. Keeping her head down to watch her footing on the rain-soaked road, she got to the car and could make out the dark shape of a low sports car with an engine that purred with a throaty idle. An expensive car.

Mallory circled to the passenger side, but before she could open the door, the man was there, reaching around her to pull the handle up. He was so close that Mallory felt his heat, and she inhaled the mingled scent of rain, mellow after-shave and a certain maleness. Then the door was open, and Mallory quickly got into the brown leather interior lit softly by dome and side lights.

She saw a dash that glowed with red-and-green gages, and instruments that would make a jet plane look simple. As the door closed, the interior lights went out. Mallory settled in the bucket seat and pushed the hood from her wet hair and swiped at the hair clinging to her face, then turned as the driver’s door opened.

The interior lights flashed on again as the stranger easily maneuvered his rangy frame behind the leather-covered steering wheel. As he turned to push the umbrella into the area behind the front seats, Mallory got a clear look at him and she felt her breath catch.

The man from the theater, as dark as the night itself, and as disturbing as the storm that crashed around them outside. “You,” she breathed.

He looked right at her as he ran a hand over his damp black hair, slicking it back from his roughly handsome face. “The Ghost of Christmas Past,” he murmured, his dark eyes unblinking and intense in their scrutiny.

“How could…?” She touched her tongue to her lips. She could sense that aura of danger he had exuded last night at the theater, and that sensuality, as well, and she felt uncomfortable in these closed quarters. “How could you be here?”

The wind caught the door and slammed it shut, cutting off the lights inside, but it did nothing to diminish the impact of finding herself in this man’s car. He turned to settle behind the wheel. “I drove and didn’t go into a ditch.”

“I’m not in a ditch,” she said, hating the way her breathing tightened and her heartbeat refused to settle into a normal rhythm. She was totally alone with this man, and every nerve in her body was on edge.

“You’re stuck,” he pointed out as he put the car in gear, the windshield wipers swiping at the sheeting rain. The car moved to the left and headed up the road.

“What were you doing at the theater?” she asked.

“I like live theater.”

She hadn’t had any sense that he belonged at the theater when she’d run into him. “You’re connected with the theater?”

“No, I got lost going to the men’s room.” He maneuvered a sharp corner, then headed uphill. “I hear the play closed, that what I saw was the last performance.”

“Yes, it was.” She stared at him as she nervously fingered the wet fabric of her coat. She could see little of him beyond a blurred profile touched by the low lights from the dash. “It just isn’t a good time for small theater companies right now.”

“Since it’s already closed, I guess the bad publicity about the accident won’t hurt it.”

“Excuse me?”

“The hit-and-run victim outside the theater. I understood that she was a cast member.”

The words were said evenly and without emotion, but they set Mallory’s stomach into knots. “She was.”

“She died?”

“No, she’s still alive.” Mallory closed her eyes for a moment, then exhaled and looked back at the man. “How did you know about all that?”

“The newspaper.”

She hadn’t even thought about the accident making the news. “The car never stopped. It’s so senseless. If she hadn’t gone out just then, or if it hadn’t been raining…”

“Life boils down to chance, doesn’t it?”

“A lot of times it does.” She forced her hands to stop clenching and pressed them on the damp fabric of her coat by her thighs. “What are you doing out here in this storm?”

“Chance,” he said softly. “The same as getting lost on the way to the rest room and meeting a ghost.”

She nibbled on her lip as tension grew in her neck and shoulders. “That’s no answer.”

He ignored her statement and asked, “Is Saxon Mills expecting you?”

“Yes. I’m supposed to be there at six.”

“You’re going to be late.”

She glanced at the digital clock in the dash, surprised to see that it was only five minutes to six. It seemed as if she had been on the road with this man for an eternity, but it had been less than ten minutes.

“If I get there close to six, I think it will be all right,” she said, hoping it was true.

“Seeing him is pretty important to you, isn’t it?”

“Yes it is, and I really appreciate you giving me a ride,” she said, realizing she should have said those words a lot sooner. But surprise had robbed her of logical thinking for a few moments.

Right then, the man turned onto a narrow lane. As Mallory looked ahead of them, a cracking bolt of lightning lit the sky, exposing trees pressing on both sides and rain that ran down the pavement like a river. Then the light was gone, thunder pealed, and the only glow in the blackness came from the headlights of the sports car.

“You’re going there for the holidays?”

“Not entirely.”

“Business, too?”

Another bolt of lightning tore through the night, and thunder followed close on its heels. “It’s getting closer,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“The lightning. When you see lightning, you start counting one thousand one, one thousand two. And whatever number you get up to before you hear the thunder, that’s how many miles you are from the strike point of the lightning. That last lightning struck only a mile or so from here.”

“Is that a scientific fact, or an old wives’ tale?”

“I think it’s scientific.”

“Or maybe it was created to take people’s attention off the storm.”

She glanced at him again. “A diversion?”

“Yes, sort of like you’re doing right now when I asked you that question.”

“Excuse me?”

“I asked if you were seeing Saxon Mills on business and I was given the theory behind calculating the distance of lightning when it strikes.”

“I’m going there to see Mr. Mills,” she said. “That’s it. Period.”

“I was just trying to figure out what’s so important that you were willing to go out on a night like this.”

The more he prodded at her for details, the more she dug in her heels. She wasn’t about to tell him exactly what she was doing on a road in this storm with his car hurtling toward her. “I didn’t expect the storm to keep up so long.” She laughed, a forced sound at best. “Besides, everyone knows we’re in a drought situation in California. Now they’re saying there’s no end in sight to the storm.”

“Who are you?” he asked abruptly.

“Mallory King. Who are you?” She deliberately said the question echoing his abruptly blunt tone.

“Anthony Carella. Where are you from?”

“The city.” She felt annoyance at the man’s curt tone of interrogation and repeated his words back to him. “Where are you from?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Why were you at the theater in San Francisco?”

He was silent for a moment as he downshifted, slowing the car to a crawl. Then he glanced at her, his look lost in the shadows. He was silent for a long moment, then he turned back to the road ahead of them. “All right. I get the idea.”

“What idea?”

“I tend to interrogate people. It’s a bad habit of mine.”

And you never answered my question about the theater, she thought, but didn’t ask it again. “What are you—a lawyer?”

“No. Just a businessman.”

She sat back in the seat. “Are you going somewhere for the holidays, or are you going somewhere on business?”

She could see him shrug, the movement sharp in the shadows. “Both. I’m going to see an associate of mine, and it happens to be the holidays.” He cast her a fleeting glance as he slowed the car a bit more. “To answer your earlier question, I heard from a reliable source that I’d find the play interesting.”

“You like Dickens?”

“I like interesting things,” he murmured.

Mallory looked ahead of them and saw they were at the end of the road, facing a pair of massive stone pillars caught in the watery glow of the headlights. Imposing iron gates were open, and the car drove through onto a rough, cobbled drive that wound to the right. Wind shook the low car as it climbed upward. Then, as it crested the rise, two bolts of lightning ripped through the sky, one right on top of the other.

The eerie blue-white light exposed the scene in front of Mallory for no more than a split second, yet the images seemed to burn into her brain.

On a hill that rose out of a sea of rain-beaten grass dotted by trees that were almost bent to the ground by the wind, stood a looming structure that for all the world looked like a medieval castle. Corner turrets rose high into the turbulent night sky, and narrow windows glowed faintly gold from the interior lights. The drive wound up toward a jutting portico supported by huge pillars, and low lights lined sweeping steps that climbed to the entrance.

“This is Saxon Mills’s home?” she breathed as thunder rumbled.

“You sound surprised.”

She sat forward as they approached it, straining to make out more details, but unable to see little more now than the hulking shape and the dim glow of light at the windows and stairs. “I am, and I’m impressed. I’ve heard about the man being eccentric, but this looks like a castle.”

“I think the resemblance to a castle is more than coincidental.” As they neared the portico, the headlights swept in front of them, exposing rough stone walls that shimmered with rain. “If you know Saxon Mills at all, you know he gets some sort of a rush out of taking on the mantle. Actually, I don’t believe he’d mind if you chose to worship him.”

Mallory looked at the man. “Mr. Carella—”

“Tony,” he said, correcting her. “I don’t go along with formal royalty in this country.”

“It sounds as if you don’t like Saxon Mills very much.”

He eased the car under the portico and stopped at the foot of the stairs, which led up to twenty-foot doors set in the heavy stone walls. The wind drove rain under the protection of the overhang, but the heaviest part of the downpour was blocked. “Whether I like him or not isn’t important. I know what he is. That’s the bottom line.”

“He’s an eccentric millionaire,” she said.

“A billionaire, and he’s much more than eccentric.”

“Whatever,” she murmured, glancing at the dash clock. “I’m already fifteen minutes late. Thanks for the ride. I really appreciate it.” She turned to get out, but before she could touch the handle, Tony stopped her.

His fingers circled her wrist, cool and firm. The shock of his touch when he’d gripped her arm earlier was nothing compared to this. Skin-on-skin contact jolted her, and his fingers were tight, hovering just this side of inflicting pain. She sat very still and darted him a cautious look.

Even with the shimmering light of the house lamps coming through the rain-streaked windows, Tony was in the shadows, the glow not penetrating the darkness that seemed to surround him. When she tugged at the confines of his hold, she was freed, but she knew it was only because he allowed her to break the contact. If this had been a match of strength, she knew she wouldn’t stand a chance.