Raintree: Haunted (Raintree 2)

She should leave now. Go home, get some sleep, drop by in the morning to pick Raintree up and either take him to the doctor or make arrangements to collect his Challenger from the motel parking lot. He probably wouldn’t be able to drive for a couple of days, but they would think of some way to get his car back here where it belonged.

Movement beyond the window caught her attention. Given that someone had recently stabbed Gideon, she paid close attention and concentrated, trying to discern what had caught her eye. A glare on the windowpanes made it difficult for her to see as well as she wanted to, so she turned out the kitchen light and focused on the beach while her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

The indistinct figure of a man was walking toward the water. He moved slowly, his feet all but dragging. The night had been clear thus far, but suddenly lightning flashed in the distance. Quickly, too quickly, clouds drifted before the moon, robbing the night of the light Hope needed to see who was out there at this hour.

The thunder and lightning moved closer, a jagged bolt flashing across the sky, giving off just enough light for Hope to see what she needed to. The man on the beach was near naked, wearing only a bathing suit or a pair of shorts—or boxers. His hair was a little too long, his broad shoulders were tired, his legs were long…and his left thigh was bandaged.

Hope ran first to the bedroom. The bed she’d left Gideon sleeping in was empty. The curtains covering the large window that overlooked the ocean had been drawn back, and she realized that it wasn’t just a window but French doors that opened onto an elaborate deck.

Hope ran onto the deck, certain that she could not have seen what she thought she’d seen. Raintree must be sleepwalking, or maybe hallucinating. If he collapsed onto the sand, she would never be able to get him back here alone. And if he walked into the ocean…Dammit, she should have insisted on taking him to the hospital! She ran down the stairs that led to the boardwalk and then to the beach, her steps uneasy once she reached the sand. She stopped to remove her pumps and tossed them aside as another bolt of lightning lit the sky and thunder rumbled.

A stroke of lightning flashed straight down and hit Gideon, and instead of a rumble the thunder was a loud, dangerous pop. Hope stumbled in the sand, her breath stolen away, fear coloring her entire world for that split second.

“Gideon!” She waited for him to fall to the ground or burst into flame, but he didn’t. He stood there, arms outstretched, and yet another bolt hit him. The thunder was an earsplitting crack, and this time the lightning that found Gideon seemed to stay connected to him, until sparks generated from the blast were dancing on his skin.

Hope didn’t call Gideon’s name again, but she continued to run toward him. This wasn’t possible, was it? A man couldn’t walk onto the beach and be hit by lightning again and again and just stand there. As she watched the electricity dance on his skin, she remembered what her mother had said after Raintree had left the apartment Tuesday night. Hope had still been shaking from the orgasm he’d triggered with his touch, and her mother had mused with a smile, “His aura positively sparkles. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“Stop,” he commanded without turning to face her. “It’s not safe for you to get too close.”

Hope stuttered to a halt several feet behind him. The moon had disappeared behind clouds, dimming the night, but she could see him well enough. She could see him well because he was glowing gently.

He turned to face her as the storm that had come out of nowhere rolled away, fading and suddenly not at all threatening. But Hope didn’t have eyes for the storm; her gaze was riveted to the man before her. Electricity popped and swayed on his skin, a gentle glow radiating from him. He’d shaved, she noticed, doing away with his goatee and mustache. And his eyes…did they glow, or was it a trick of the light?

It couldn’t be a trick of the light. There was no light except for that he himself created.

A part of her wanted to turn and run. She was not the kind of woman who would gladly and openly embrace the impossible. But her feet were rooted in the sand, and she didn’t run. “I was watching from the kitchen window,” she said, her voice weaker than she would have liked.

Gideon stepped toward her, and tiny sparks swirled where his bare feet sank into the sand. “I know.”

Nightmares—vivid dreams of his parents and Lily Clark and all the people in between that he hadn’t been able to save—had sent Gideon to the water, where he’d drawn in the lightning to feed his body and his soul, and wipe the last vestiges of the drug from his system. He hadn’t walked far onto the beach before he’d realized that Hope was watching. He didn’t care. Maybe it was right that she know; maybe she needed to know.

She stood a few feet away, uneasy and unsteady in the soft sand. “Are you all right?” she asked in a soft, suspicious voice.

“Yeah.”

The unspoke

n how? remained between them, silent but powerful. She’d seen the streetlamps explode, been touched by a ghost’s cold fingers, and still she remained skeptical. But there was no explaining this away.

Her gaze dropped to his thigh, where the electricity was working upon his damaged flesh with a ferocity she couldn’t begin to understand.

“You, uh, glow in the dark, Raintree.” She tried for a lighthearted tone but fell far short.

“Only when I’m turned on.” He stepped toward her, and she moved out of the way. Not running, but definitely avoiding being too close.

“Very funny,” she said, as they walked back toward the house.

Actually, it wasn’t funny at all. The fact that he wanted this woman naked in his bed was nothing to laugh about. She was his partner, and she was one of those staunch women who questioned everything endlessly. Why? How? When? That made her a great detective, but where he was concerned, such attributes led to disaster. He’d always tried to avoid overly curious women.

He’d never been caught before. Sure, there had been times when his neighbors, awakened by the storms he drew, later asked, Didn’t I see you on the beach? He always denied it, and they always wrote off what they’d seen to a dream or a trick of the light. After all, what he did, what he was, was impossible to comprehend.

“You’re walking better,” Hope said as they neared the wooden steps that led to his bedroom.

“I think the drug affected me more strongly than the actual wound. It’s wearing off.” What remained after the nightmares had passed had been washed away by the lightning.

“Good.” For a moment Hope didn’t say more, and then she fidgeted and said, “Okay, you have some kind of weird electrical thing going on. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical medical explanation for everything.”

“Why does it have to be perfectly logical?”