The Presence by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

to be a living MacNiall, why couldn’t he have been eighty, white haired and kind!
    Fighting her irritation, she stripped and stepped into the shower. The hot water didn’t last very long; she was probably the last one getting to it that night.
    Still swearing beneath her breath, she stepped out, towel-dried quickly and slipped into a flannel gown. In her room, she debated the idea of attempting a fire. She’d had one herself in the other room, but David and Kevin had built it for her. Despite her Chicago homeland, she’d never built a fire.
    Using the long matches from the mantel, she tried lighting the logs in the hearth. But nothing happened. Some kind of kindling was needed. Perhaps a piece of newspaper or something. Looking around the room, she saw nothing to use.
    Lightning suddenly flared beyond the gauzy drapes that covered the door to the widow’s walk. It was an actual balcony, she thought, not a little turret area, as was found in the master’s chambers.
    Immediately after, thunder cracked. The wooden door that led outward to the old stone area swung in with a loud bang as the wind blew it open with a vengeance. She hopped up and hurried over to the door. It was a nasty night, not the kind she had imagined here!
    She closed the door with an effort and bolted it. Staring through the slender openings of the arrow slits, she saw another flash of lightning. She should count her blessings that they hadn’t been thrown out that night.
    She gave up on the fire and curled into the canopied bed, then hopped up again. The only light switch for the room was apparently right next to the bathroom.
    With it out, she was plunged into a darkness so deep it was unnerving. Shaking her head, she opened the bathroom door, turned the light on, hesitated, then left the door on her side of the room ajar—she would have killed herself trying to get into bed in the pure ink that had filled the room.
    Was she being an idiot? No, this fellow truly had no interest in her. Maybe she should be insulted, she thought wryly. At five-nine, with deep blue eyes and light hair that had deepened over the years to a dark blond, she was usually considered to be attractive. But apparently not to the ogre in the next room.
    Bruce MacNiall. She must have heard the name somewhere.
    Lying in the great bed, she shivered as she hadn’t shivered in years.
    No! It was not some kind of precognition comingback to her. She had stopped all that years ago, closed her mind, be cause she had willed that it would be so!
    Still…
    She tossed and turned, wishing that there was a television in the room. Or a fire. Watching the flames would have been nice.
    Her mind kept racing, denying that this could be happening when they had tried so hard to do things right. There had to be a mistake. There had to be some thing to do!
    How had she come up with the name Bruce MacNiall?
    At last, she drifted to sleep.
    Â 
    Bruce had just lain down when he heard the ear-piercing scream. Instinct brought him bolt-awake, leaping from the bed. A second’s disorientation was quickly gone as he heard a second cry of terror.
    It was coming from the next room.
    He raced through the connecting bathroom to see his uninvited guest sitting up in the bed, pointing in front of her, a look of terror on her face.
    â€œMiss Fraser…Toni! What is it?”
    He realized only then that she wasn’t really awake. Racing to her, he took her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. Her reaction stunned him. She jerked from his hold and leaped with an incredibly lithe and agile motion to her feet and stared down at him.
    She was a rather amazing sight, mane of gold hair caught in the pale light, shimmering like a halo around her delicate, refined features. Her eyes were the size of saucers, and in the soft-colored flannel gown, she might have been a misplaced Ophelia.
    Something hard inside him wondered just what new act she was up to now. Something else