Free Forever and the Night (The Black Rose Chronicles) by Linda Lael Miller

voice called.
    Neely ran on, tripped over a fallen birch limb, scraped her shin, scrambled to her feet again, and flung herself headlong toward Aidan’s house. She could see the light on his front porch through the trees.
    Behind her, the man from the Blazer crashed along in pursuit.
    Neely looked back, half blind with unreasoning terror, and collided hard with something. At first she thought it was a tree, but then a pair of strong hands steadied her, and she looked up into the classically handsome face of Aidan Tremayne. She was too breathless to speak.
    “You’re all right now,” he said in a low voice. For the first time she noticed a hint of a brogue in the way he framed his words. “No one’s going to hurt you.” He glared into the woods with a chilling intentness for a long moment, then shifted his gaze back to Neely again.
    He smiled, and some of the starch went out of her knees.
    Vaguely she heard running footsteps, the crash of a car door closing, the squeal of tires on wet pavement.
    “What you need is a cup of tea,” Aidan said, as though it were perfectly normal for the two of them to be standing out there in the woods at that hour. He wasn’t even wearing a coat, just jeans and a fisherman’s sweater. “Come along now.”
    Neely allowed him to escort her through the woods; he politely cupped her elbow in one hand.
    “Do you always go out walking at such odd times?” he asked. There was no irritation in the question, only a companionable kind of curiosity.
    “No,” Neely answered, somewhat weakly. “No, I don’t. It’s just that I’ve been feeling very restless lately—”
    “Any idea who the rascal in the woods might have been?”
    Neely shook her head, embarrassed. She was making one hell of an impression. “I ran into the trees when he stopped and turned around, and he followed. He was probably harmless, but—”
    “But you don’t think so?” he asked. They had gained the edge of Aidan’s sloping lawn.
    Again she shook her head. “I have some formidable enemies,” she said.
    “So do I,” he replied. They mounted the steps to the porch, and he held the door open for her, waiting politely while she passed over the threshold.
    He led her into a parlor, where oil lamps burned cozily and a fire blazed on the hearth. “Here,” he said, depositing her in a large leather chair. “Have a seat and catch your breath. I’ll get that tea. Or would you rather have brandy?”
    “Brandy,” Neely said without hesitation.
    Aidan smiled, went to a sideboard, and poured amber liquid into an etched glass snifter. He brought Neely the drink but stood well away from her chair while she sipped.
    “I know I’ve already disrupted your evening,” she began when her limbs had stopped quivering and her heart had slowed to its normal pace, “but I wonder if you’d mind driving me home. I’m afraid to walk, under the circumstances.”
    He was near the fireplace, arms folded, his back braced against the mantelpiece. The first two times Neely had encountered him, she’d been struck by the unusual fairness of his complexion, but that night his face looked quite normal, almost ruddy. “I’ll bring the car around in a few minutes,” he said in that refined voice of his.
    Neely stared at him over the rim of her glass, wanting to blurt out that she’d dreamed about him, that she wondered why. But she only nodded.
    “These ‘powerful enemies’ of yours,” he said, watching her in a way that made her feel like some unparalleled work of art. “Can you tell me who they are?”
    She sighed and sank back in the chair, slouching, running one index finger around the rim of the snifter. “It might not be wise to do that,” she mused after a long time. “It’s dangerous to know too much.”
    One moment he was halfway across the room, the next, Aidan was crouching beside her chair.
    “It’s often more dangerous not knowing enough, don’t you think?”
    Neely felt a purely elemental pull toward him