Read an Excerpt

ONE
 
The woman stood in the doorway, a silhouette etched in gold. The light shining from behind her illuminated an ethereal creature who might have come straight out of a child’s fairy tale.
 
He hadn’t rung the bell. In fact Razor Cody hadn’t been at all certain that he’d found the right house. Instead of the proud, restored Victorian mansion he’d been expecting, the narrow, decrepit house was sandwiched between two others, hanging back a step as if it were ashamed of its shabby exterior.
 
But what held his attention wasn’t the house, it was the woman. She was a fantasy, a princess, with hair the color of spun gold framing a mysterious face hidden by the shadows.
 
He hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected the tightness in his chest that made it hard to breathe either.
 
“Are you Miss Rachel Kimble?”
 
“You’ve come,” she said in a low, breathless voice, giving credence to the fantasy. “I’ve been expecting you.”
 
“How is that?”
 
“When Harry left, he said you’d come.”
 
“Harry?” He’d found her. At last he’d found the right woman. “I don’t doubt that,” Razor said sharply. “Knowing Harry, I don’t doubt that at all.”
 
She didn’t answer, but the tilt of her chin suggested a calm acceptance of the tension that suddenly hung in the air between them.
 
“Where is he?” Razor finally asked, remaining as still as the woman.
 
Through the open door, he caught the scent of a subtly illusive perfume that, under other circumstances, might have intrigued the senses of a man who’d been described as too hard to notice such things. The aroma suggested the Orient perhaps, or maybe some long-forgotten fragrance from the South Seas.
 
“Where is who?”
 
“Harry, that low-down crook. I warn you, lady, I want him. If he isn’t here, I’ll wait. I intend to have my revenge.”
 
“Why would you want to harm Harry?”
 
“Because I let that smooth-talking confidence man convince me to take him on as a partner. As a result I lost my construction company, my reputation, and most of my assets.”
 
“Oh dear,” Rachel murmured. “What did Harry do to cause that?”
 
“He used inferior products and took shortcuts on construction. Then, when the hotel we were building collapsed, Harry disappeared, leaving me to take the blame.”
 
Rachel Kimble had known this man was coming. Now, as he stood on her porch in the darkness, her vision of his face was as clear as it had been the first time she’d seen him and, for the weeks since, when he’d become a special part of her dreams. She hadn’t known his name, nor when he’d arrive—only that he would come.
 
A bead of perspiration rolled down between her breasts, and she realized that her whole body was responding to his presence. She’d known what would happen, too, but she hadn’t understood how strong the feelings would be.
 
He was tall, powerful, even dangerous. She could feel the rigidly held emotion strumming through him, like distant music in the night. Yes, she thought, dark, both inside and out, with wicked, strong eyes that cut through her, firing the heat that curled and flickered in the pit of her stomach.
 
“Of course you’ll wait,” she whispered, moving aside to permit him to enter. “I wasn’t sure how you’d find me, but I knew you would. Now I understand. Harry sent you to me.”
 
“Sent me? Not on your life, Miss Rachel. In fact I’m reasonably certain that Harry doesn’t want me here—not if he plans to hang on to that tiger-colored head of hair and those whiskers he’s so proud of. When I get my hands on him, I intend to shave both, before I separate him from his head.”
 
Rachel wasn’t worried by his threat. His anger was understandable, for it came from the same powerful force that kindled the fire between them. But there was an underlying sense of urgency in the man’s tightly wound voice. It vibrated in the air and feathered her cheeks with menace. She shivered. She tingled. Beneath her long skirt, her cat, Witchy, rubbed against her ankles, purring the strange sound that announced her unease.
 
Still Rachel waited. She couldn’t have misinterpreted the vision. Even if she hadn’t seen him repeatedly in her dreams, the one time she’d dared to ask, her special cards had predicted his arrival. She couldn’t have made a mistake. He couldn’t be the wrong man. It had never occurred to her that he wouldn’t understand.
 
“Miss Kimble. That is your last name, isn’t it?”
 
She nodded. He didn’t understand. That would make the situation more difficult. But she’d work it out. For now it was best that she be patient with him. “Yes, I’m Rachel Kimble. But you have me at a disadvantage. I don’t know your name.”
 
“That’s right, you don’t. Do you always invite perfect strangers into your home?”
 
“Perfect?” She gave a little laugh, throwing back her head. Yes, he was the one she’d expected. “Oh, my fantasy man, I don’t know much about you, but I doubt that ‘perfect’ would apply, and if you were perfect, we wouldn’t fit together.”
 
As the light unveiled her face, Razor felt a burst of unexpected fire hit him somewhere in the area of his groin. Wearing an ankle-length print skirt and some kind of off-the-shoulder lavender blouse, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. With huge violet eyes and a head of tousled blond hair that spilled across her bare shoulders like a golden cape, she was breathtaking—nothing like he’d expected.
 
And she was wrong. She was perfect.
 
There was honesty and passion there, which seemed to complement a spiritual kind of innocence. She was staring at him, not with fear but with question in the tilt of her head, eyes wide with something akin to wonder.
 
But more, there was a curious kind of calmness about her. In the face of his vocal threat she simply waited, her lips parted, her breathing light and quick.
 
Over the years he’d known many women, enough to handle himself in almost any situation. But this woman didn’t fit the mold. He couldn’t put his finger on what was so different about her, but the quiet assurance of her whispery voice reached out and touched him like a physical caress.
 
“Miss Kimble, only my mother could find any perfection in me,” he said, forcing some of the tightness from his voice. “And she was prejudiced.”
 
“I’m glad. Mothers ought to think their children are perfect.”
 
“And they’re quite often blind.”
 
Rachel blanched, dropping her hand from the door and stepping back. She’d never known her mother. She’d been raised in an orphanage by nuns. She’d never had a family at all—until Harry.
 
“Seeing what we want to see instead of the truth,” she said softly, “is sometimes a gift. When we can no longer see reality, we create it, Mr.…”
 
“Cody, Razor Cody. Now, if you’ll direct me to Harry, I’ll not take up any more of your time.”
 
“Oh, but you will,” she said. How could she make him understand? Now that he was there, her life was changing and she couldn’t stop it. She’d been moving toward this moment for two years. Suddenly she was afraid.
 
“No, I’ll go, as soon as I find Harry.”
 
“No, you won’t. You’ll take up a great deal of my time, Mr. Cody,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Bring your bag inside and close the door. Come, Witchy, let’s make our guest some tea. Will it be blackberry or China? Or perhaps our own special blend?”
 
Razor hadn’t expected it to be easy to find Harry. The entire Atlanta police department couldn’t do that, but Razor had known about Miss Rachel, living in Savannah, Georgia. Harry’s big mistake, while he was deliberately ruining Razor, was referring to Rachel, over and over. Sometimes with pride, sometimes concern. Always as “the beautiful Miss Rachel.” But, without a last name, it had taken Razor some time to find her. Miss Rachel turned out to be a surprise.
 
He watched as she moved serenely down the hallway, past the faded wallpaper and worn carpet as if she were walking the halls of some Italian castle.
 
Razor had the same sensation he’d once had in a house of mirrors, as if what he was seeing wasn’t real, as if the floor beneath his feet were shifting, not attached to the ground. After a moment he shook off the illusion that he had stepped back in time and he followed her.
 
Again he wondered what kind of woman invited a stranger in and offered him tea? She’d been waiting for him, expecting him. Surely she had confused his arrival with that of someone else. Razor was acutely uncomfortable with that thought. How could she have expected him, and if she had, what did she expect him to do?
 
Surely she wasn’t a con artist like Harry.
 
No, that didn’t match the slightly melancholy feel to the run-down house he was seeing. Nor did the house match the mansion Harry had bragged about providing for his Miss Rachel. It was more of a row house, the narrow corridor running alongside a small parlor and the staircase leading up. He stopped, leaning against an odd-shaped floor-to-ceiling post that formed the final pillar at the base of the stair rail.
 
Something was wrong.
 
Something was eerie.
 
Something was making Razor feel little twinges of cold across his face and down his backbone, almost as if he were being touched with icy fingertips.