The Girl in Blue. Barbara Hancock J.

and then the fabric grew taut against her neck. And still he tugged. Not hard, but insistent. Inexorably. She could resist. She could pull back and away.

      She didn’t.

      Instead, she let him pull her forward using the gentle tug on her soft scarf as leverage.

      He began to wind its length around his fingers—once, twice, again. That was all it took to bring her body flush to his.

      He was tall and muscular like a wall ofsolid masculine flesh. His pull had brought her much softer, but much tenser form against his. She was braving the fall by looking into his eyes again and he quirked onebrow and paused, waiting—for what she couldn’t be sure.

      Did he expect her to run away?

      This close, she could see the damp under layers of his hair and she could detect the scent of soap on his skin. He’d taken a morning shower while she disposed of matches and snooped in his rooms. She could also breathe in the faint mellow bite of the whiskey he’d had before breakfast.

      “I shouldn’t be here, but I am. You brought me back from a cold consuming darkness I’d never even known existed. There’s damnation and decadence in that, Trinity, in case you didn’t know,” Creed said. She thought she knew. Somehow. All about darkness and damnation, but not decadence….

      Crystalline seconds froze the world around them in that iced November memory, but they weren’t cold now. Not at all.

      He dropped his lips to hers in a predatory swoop that had been in the making for seven long years, but he didn’t need the hold he had on her scarf. She held herself still for his descending mouth. She tilted her chin to meet it.

      It was a mistake. She accepted the inevitable kiss with the courage she should save to face other things.

      His lips were soft, but firm. His tongue, with a hungry flick, brought a hint of expensive Scotch and heat as far removed from November chill as could be. She reached for him, her arms around his neck and one hand burrowed into his hair, but he continued to hold only her scarf as if it was a lifeline.

      To save him from what, she couldn’t be sure.

      Not Scarlet Falls. He chose to be here. He chose to dive deep into the history of the town.

      She was the one who was falling. She could feel the dark hungry maw at her feet. But holding onto Creed only made the fall more imminent.

      When she moved her hands to wrap them around the knot he’d made of her scarf, he pulled his lips from hers. Their mouths clung as if in protest for several seconds, but he gave them no mercy. He tilted his chin up to break the contact, but he didn’t let her go. Maybe because her hands were twined around his fist in her scarf and he didn’t want to jar her bandage. Or maybe because he was too busy looking into her eyes.

      Trinity shuttered them as fast as she could. She thought of puppy dogs and taxes and how far she would be behind when or if she was ever able to return to school. But somewhere in that mix, erotic thoughts mingled. Like how intoxicating the taste of Scotch was on his tongue even at 9:00 a.m. and how well its rich flavor fit with the shadows in his eyes. And more desperate and wickedthoughts, too. Like maybe, just maybe if she had to face constant threats, she would like to do it with the afterglow of his lovemaking on her lips and on her skin.

      “I can’t leave Hillhaven. I have to be here for my work. This is the oldest structure in town. Did you know that?” Creed asked.

      He still held her scarf and his eyes still burned. His lips were masculine and firm and also swollen from their kiss. They were only separated from hers by inches. She wanted to narrow that margin, but she held herself very, very still instead.

      “The lake is older,” Trinity reminded him, her heartbeat pulsing in her ears.

      “I know,” Creed said and she thought she saw the memory of breathing those bleak waters in his face.

      His fist loosened in her scarf and she released her hold so he could pull his hand free. But their bodies were still too close for comfort, if comfort didn’t involve increased body heat and an elevated pulse.

      Trinity backed away as casually as her instinct to either run or kiss Creed again would allow. Every muscle in her body responded to her inner turmoil with tension. She was coiled inside and out, prepared to spring into his arms or flee. His tense face watched her careful movements with predatory stillness.

      He was no more relaxed than she.

      When a child’s girlish laughter skittered its eerie tones up Trinity’s spine, she gasped and turned toward the door. Creed reacted, too, but to her sudden movement not to the sound. He put his hand out to her shoulder as if to steady her, but his touch wasn’t comforting. Not when the laughter sounded again in the air all around them.

      None of the windows were open. There was no draft from the hallway, but suddenly an old photograph fluttered loose from one of the nearby piles of memorabilia. Maybe she’d dislodged it during her earlier snoop. Or maybe not.

      Creed bent down to retrieve the sepia-toned photo before she could reach for it herself. She didn’t have to hold it in her hands to see the brown and black around the edges where the paper had curled and turned to ash after being damaged by some long ago flames.

      The Girl in Blue.

      Trinity could see the pretty pastel pinafore of robin’s egg blue in the photograph. She’d seen that dress so many times before, disappearing around a corner or lurking in the dark. She could see the corkscrew curls that framed a cherubic face and lips made red by the photo processes of yesteryear. The Girl in Blue had been about eight or nine when the picture was taken. With a start, Trinity looked from the photograph to the ragdoll she’d noticed earlier with its creepy button eyes and back again.

      The girl in the photo held the doll to her chest.

      “Why do you have all these mementos?” Trinity asked.

      Creed glanced at the photo as if he was so familiar with it that he didn’t need to look closely before he placed it back in the pile it had come from.

      “Since that day by the lake, Scarlet Falls whispers to me. Whiskey helps. Quiets the noise. But sometimes I look and listen and find and keep,” Creed said.

       Whispers.

      So Samuel Creed was plagued by whispers. No wonder he seemed to watch her while she braced for screams.

       Chapter Four

      She had waited for Creed to leave the house before slipping back to his rooms. They’d parted awkwardly, like two boxers retreating to neutral corners of the ring. She told herself discretion was the better part of valor, but in reality a little time in his presence went a long way…especially since she was determined not to eat him alive. He was indelibly entwined with Scarlet Falls. It was almost impossible to tell where Creed began and the town ended. He was fascinated by its darkness. She feared the lake hadn’t really let him go that day, no matter that she had saved him. Giving in to her attraction to him felt like tempting Scarlet Falls to reach out to claim her, as well.

      She found the photograph where he had placed it back among the eclectic clutter of his collection which seemed to hold everything from the mundane to the macabre. The crow “watched” her when she picked up the old photo and turned it over in her palm. Worse, the button-eyed doll sat—its creepiness magnified by the evidence of its longevity Trinity held in her hands.