The Girl in Blue. Barbara Hancock J.

not be finished with her games. Once Trinity changed into a gray-fitted sweater with a matching scarf shot through with silver threads that almost made her eyes look bright, she went to check on him even though she shouldn’t have.

      Surprise dispelled some of her fear.

      Her parents had only been out of the country for a few weeks, but the rooms were filled—boxes of files, stacks of rolled, yellowed paper that proved to be maps when she fingered their edges, books, newspapers and magazines.

      Trinity slowed, walked around each room astonished by all the paraphernalia. Added to the reference materials were other things—memorabilia, knick knacks and photographs.

      There was an old rusty wagon with dented sides that squeaked when she nudged it with her foot. In the wagon, a glass jar sat full of the tiny tear-shaped rocks diligent beach combers could find on the shores of High Lake. People called the stones “Maiden’s tears.” Trinity was pretty sure every house in town had a few. There was a lone, scuffed black Mary Jane shoe small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. She held it for only a second because its petite size and its missing companion gave her imagination too many gruesome directions to go. A rag doll with a dingy gingham dress and button eyes forbade her touch by simply being too freaky with its blank sewn-on stare. There was also a stuffed crow with oily black feathers and beaded eyes that glittered as they “watched” her wherever she moved.

      Trinity edged away from the bird, not liking the wicked sharpness of its beak forever frozen in a silent caw.

      In her need to put distance between herself and the bird’s impossible peck, she bumped into a stack of books piled on a desk almost hidden beneath its load. The stack swayed, but she grabbed the top book and shored up the column of dusty tomes before it could topple.

      The name “Chadwick” caught her attention and she looked closer at the glossy jacket of the book. It was all about the witch trials of the seventeenth century. She flipped through its pages. The crudely drawn pen and ink illustrations left her oddly shaken. Hanging. Drowning. Burning at the stake. Rendered in a simple hand with slashing finesse that somehow captured the pain and horror on the faces of the persecuted “witches.”

      One drowning bothered her most of all.

      It was of a bound woman being doused in a lake whose banks were lined with townspeople watching and waiting for her to die in order to prove her innocence. The “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” hopelessness and savagery of the scene made her chest tighten.

      While she’d been trying to forget Scarlet Falls for three long years, Samuel Creed literally surrounded himself with the town and its dark history.

      “I don’t like to be disturbed while I’m working,” Creed said gruffly from the doorway.

      Trinity carefully closed the book and placed it back where she’d found it. As she did so she saw the author’s name—Samuel Creed. She didn’t turn to face him. She felt like she’d disturbed a dragon in his lair, but Creed’s treasured horde wasn’t gold and precious gems. It was the dusty remains of lives long gone and the shadowed memories of souls whose restless wanderings might be responsible for her darkest fears.

      “I don’t like an audience when I meditate,” she replied.

      “You’re a beautiful woman,” Creed said.

      Trinity straightened the stack of books again to busy her hands. Beautiful? She was short and mousy. Her dark eyebrows were prominent on her face, making her skin porcelain pale. Her eyes were a light hazel and they clashed with her chestnut hair that grew so fast and so wild she constantly fought to tame it.

      No one would ever call her a beauty, least of all someone as striking as this man—this author—who had caught her rifling through his things.

      “Seen any out-of-place matchboxes lately?” wouldn’t roll off her tongue.

      She felt his presence closer behind her even though his feet hadn’t made a sound. She turned. Shewould not be afraid to face him, even if the flush on her cheeks and the quickened beat of her heart warned her otherwise. Considering all else she had to fear, her trepidation was ridiculous.

      “You couldn’t have accumulated all of this in only a few short weeks,” she said to his open collar. He’d come that close.

      She looked up from the intimacy of that small glimpse of skin at his throat. She met his eyes.

      The room was lit by dust-mote filled sunbeams streaming through the windowsmuted by soft red drapes. His eyes matched the onyx chip in his ear despite the light surrounding them.

      Looking at him made her feel as if she was about to fall.

      His irises were that dark, that limitless.

      Her stomach anticipated the drop. Her lungs hitched in a breath to prepare.

      “Three years to be exact. I moved in shortly after you moved out. They advertised for a boarder. You didn’t know?” he asked. His voice was even more intimate than the flash of skin at his collar. They might have been talking about something as mundane as renting rooms, but the deep timbre of his tone said that that wasn’t what they were talking about at all.

      “No. They never mentioned you,” Trinity said. They might have tried. She’d never given them the chance. Her calls were always brief. The better to forget that she dreaded coming home even as she planned and prepared for it day by day by day.

      “And no visits,” Creed pointed out.

      Trinity nodded. She also closed her eyes. It was weak, but inevitable, akin to catching herself before she could fall.

      “When I first moved in, I thought that you would be back on occasion. I imagined sleeping under the same roof and then I was glad you didn’t come home,” he said.

      Her eyes opened in spite of her best intentions. His handsome face was tilted down toward her and its angular lines were shadowed even in the morning light.

      “You shouldn’t be here,” Creed said.

      “Neither should you,” Trinity replied. She leaned back against the desk to put some distance between them. Six inches was hardly a reprieve.

      The whole town had thought him most likely to crash and burn like some rebel teen, not become an historian with his books and memorabilia, and certainly not an author, although his fascination with the occult appeared obvious enough to make her quiver.

      “No. You’re right. I shouldn’t be here at all,” Creed agreed. His face tightened. Her attention was drawn by the tension in his jaw. The width of his shoulders. The way his hair brushed his cheeks. Anything and anywhere but his deep, dark eyes.

      “Do you remember that day by the lake?” he asked.

      And suddenly her gaze went back to his. His eyes were brown. If she looked long enough, if she allowed herself to look long enough…you could see the streaks of dark chocolate in the double shot of near black espresso.

      Yes. She could.

      And when she did, she realized how much heat it took to melt and blend all those rich colors to create his midnight gleam.

      “I remember,” Trinity said.

      Her focus dropped to his lips. They had been cold and blue against hers that day, but they had heated, hadn’t they? Once he’d coughed and gasped and came back to life, they had been as warm and wicked and alive as any girl could ask for in her first kiss.

      But then she’d spent the next four years of high school and three years in Boston avoiding him and his watchful eyes.

      “You tasted like hot chocolate and mint,” Creed said.

      He had reached for the end of her shiny scarf and he toyed with it. For some reason, the casual gesture caused heat to rise beneath her skin. Or maybe it was his talk about her taste.

      “I saved you,” Trinity said. It hadn’t been about flavorful kisses. It had been about life and death.