Secrets in the Shadows (Secrets 2)

"No, I don't think . . ."

"It's nothing. I'll put up some coffee. You want scrambled eggs? I make great scrambled eggs. Even you won't be able to improve on them," I added.

He started to smile, then looked back at the field as if someone was waiting for him.

"You've been out all night, Duncan. What difference will another hour or so make?"

My logic got to him. He nodded and followed me back into the house. He sat in the kitchen while I poured him a glass of orange juice.

"What kind of eggs would you like?"

"I'll just have some coffee. Maybe some toast," he said.

I began to prepare the coffee. I could feel his eyes intently on me, on my every move. I could also feel a trembling inside myself. When I looked at him, he just stared back. He had barely touched his juice.

"Look, Duncan, I'm no one to be giving anyone advice about how he or she should live his or her life, but you can't let your mother do this to you. You're like someone walking around with invisible chains around his wrists and his legs."

"I know," he said. He looked away for a moment, and then he turned back, wearing a more confident--almost an angry confident--expression. "I'm sorry I lied before," he said. "I did look through your bathroom window. First, when I looked in, I saw your aunt."

"Oh, Duncan."

"So I ran away and then I returned and came to your front door to apologize and I saw you going into the bathroom. I went to the window of the bathroom intending to tap on it and get your attention, but--"

"But what?"

"I didn't want to stop looking at you. I wanted to see you undress and get into the bathtub. I wanted to watch you with your eyes closed, soaking there."

I was having the strangest reaction to his confession. A part of me wanted to be angry, enraged, scream at him and tell him to get out and stay away from me forever, but another part of me was titillated, excited and fascinated with his completely uninhibited disclosure. He was as naked with his feelings as I had been in the tub. Even now, I could see the erotic pleasure lingering on his face, in his eyes, in the memory of me.

"But . . . you didn't have to look at me through a window, Duncan. You were with me in my bedroom."

"It was the forbidden part of it, seeing you without you knowing I was seeing you. It was more exciting to me," he confessed. "And then, I knew it was wrong and I fled."

"But you didn't go home."

"No!" he said, his eyes wide. "I couldn't go home. The moment she set her eyes on me, she would have known what I had done. She would see how all the lust was festering inside me."

"Oh, Duncan, you make her sound as if--"

"She would have," he insisted. "So I went around to your studio and fell asleep on the floor in the bathroom. I heard you come into the studio and I was ashamed and didn't want you to know I was there. For a while I was unable to move, struggling to think of some explanation, and then your aunt came to say good-bye and I thought I had to get away.

"But I didn't want to get away," he quickly added. He started to get up. "Now," he said, "I'm sure you

want me to leave and you want me to stay away from you. I don't blame you."

"No," I said firmly. "I don't. I wouldn't have invited you to stay if I felt that way."

He paused and looked at me, searching my face for signs of sincerity.

"I'm not mad at you, Duncan. I understand why you're so confused and troubled, why you question every feeling you have and everything you do." I smiled, remembering something. "We're birds of a feather."

His eyes lit with a brightness I had not seen. His smile deepened until he looked like he was smiling with every ounce of his being.

"I'm glad you said that, Alice. I don't know what love is exactly. I'm far from an expert when it comes to that," he said, "but I can't imagine feeling any stronger for any girl than I do for you."

"I don't know what it is either, Duncan, but I'm glad you feel that way about me."

He held his smile a moment longer, and then it started to wither. He looked like he was hearing someone talking and he was listening. For a moment I wondered if that was true. I listened hard myself, but I heard nothing.