Free A Bride For Crimson Falls by Cindy Gerard Page A

appreciating the moment.
    He breathed in the clean air. He felt the essence of the night enfolding him. Beneath the dock, the rhythm of the lake rocked against the wooden pilings in a gentle undulating motion. Above him, as big and vast and mysterious as these unaccustomed feelings, the sky stretched into infinity, glittering with an array of stars so crystalline and bright it stunned him.
    So this was night without smog and manmade light.
    And this was Colin Slater without business on his mind.
    Uncomfortable, suddenly, with the ease at which he’d slipped out of business mode and into relaxation, he shoved his hands in his pockets and turned back toward the hotel.
    It was late. After eleven. The hotel was dark, except, he noted with a frown of curiosity, for a light blazing from a window on the second story. Mentally he walked through the floor and realized that the light was coming from his room.
    Picking up his pace, he hiked the distance to the verandah, thinking all the time of Scarlett telling him about lights out at ten p.m. He remembered her saying, “That’s why there’s an oil lamp in each room.”
    There was no way an oil lamp could generate that much light. Short of a spotlight, there was only one thing he knew of that burned that bright—fire.
    Heart pounding, he sprinted up the veranda steps, jerked open the hotel’s front door and took the stairs to the second landing two at a time. By the time he raced down the hall and reached his room, he was in a rare panic. He grasped the doorknob, then jerked his hand away. It was hot to the touch, the light glowing from under the threshold, beacon bright.
    He spun around, searching the darkened hall. When he spotted the fire extinguisher, he jerked it free from its metal housing and rushed back to the door. Flipping the nozzle, he sucked in a deep breath and geared up to ram the door with his shoulder—just as it swung open with a slow, creaking groan.
    No blazing light spilled out to greet him. No fire burned beyond the open door. No smoke hung in the air to indicate there had ever been one.
    Brows narrowed, he stepped warily across the threshold into the room. On a small night table in front of the window, a lone oil lamp burned at low wick, its flame illuminating the room in a soft, golden glow. Welcoming. Inviting. Like the bed with its covers turned down.
    He closed his eyes, shook his head to clear it, then scanned the room again. Nothing was amiss. His empty suitcases sat neatly in the far corner. A soft breeze stirred the curtains at the open window. Everything was peaceful. Normal. Orderly—except for the air, which seemed to close in around him like an invisible velvet glove. The space around him felt charged with electricity, pregnant with anticipation. as a movement on the far wall caught his peripheral vision.
    Slowly, he turned. Mesmerized, he watched as a shadow formed and swelled, dancing across the faded floral wall paper. He stared, disbelieving, as it undulated, changing height, changing size; even, it seemed, changing substance. He fought it every inch of the way, but there was no denying that as he stood there, captivated by the motion,, transfixed by the sight, the shadow took form and shape.
    Slowly, incredibly, as it hovered in the pale and fading light, the shadow seemed to solidify into the shape of a woman—a sensual, voluptuous woman, her seductive dance as intoxicating as aged brandy...as enticing as mist shifting through midnight... as inviting as the sighing sound of the door closing softly behind him.
     
    “What do you think?” Casey asked her mother as they observed Colin early the next morning from behind the partially open kitchen door. “He looks good and rattled to me.”
    “I’m not so sure,” Scarlett said, as she watched him where he sat in the dining room at the same corner table as he had last night. “He looks puzzled, but my guess is he’s busy making rationalizations as we speak.”
    “I figure she pulled