Free Borrowed Vows by Sandra Heath

intention.
    Her first thought was to call the police, but even as she picked up the phone she knew how stupid her story would sound. Well, officer, it was like this. Someone poked around in my apartment, washed a few plates, cleaned up a little, riffled through my jewelry and make-up, and then took off without stealing anything. She could imagine how plausible that would sound! Deciding there was no point in reporting anything, she put the receiver down again.
    Then she noticed the telephone answering machine was blinking to show there was a message. God, she must have slept like the proverbial log not to have heard either the intruder or the phone ringing.
    She pressed the button and Richard’s voice came through clearly. “Hi. I guess you’re asleep now. I just called back to say again how great it was to get that second call from you. I’ve hated the quarreling too, and can’t bear to know you’re so far away. If you really mean it when you say you’ll cut the vacation short and come home right away, I just want you to know there’s nothing would make me happier. I wish to God I’d told Brand to go play with his own shaft, but I didn’t, so I’m stuck with it. Well, kind of stuck. Now I’ve taken a look, I’m sure the problem’s probably not as bad as he thought. A little judicious dimension-tweaking here and there might just do it, and if I’m right, I won’t have to stay here more than a few days. As for Phoenix, well, you were right, Brand intends to preen his incompetent feathers on that one. Still, he is retiring, and I’m the favored son right now. Aside from that, I could be back in New York by the weekend, and if you could be back there too ... Need I say more? I love you, Kathryn, and want to forget all about the past few months. I don’t care now if we can’t have a family, I just want you. I know I’ve been a selfish pain for far too long now, and being apart, even for this short time, has proved you’re more important than anything else. Just come home, sweetheart. Love you.”
    Kathryn stared at the machine. What was he talking about? What second call? As for calling her sweetheart and all that stuff about cutting the vacation short and starting anew, all she knew was her last call to him had ended with her thinking seriously about divorce! Was he being facetious? She rewound the machine and listened to the message again. No, he wasn’t that good an actor. He meant what he said.
    She felt uncomfortable. First there was all that “been here before” business yesterday, then the dream, followed by finding out someone had been in the apartment while she slept. Now this. Just what was going on here? Talk about dreaming an old movie plot, she was beginning to feel she was still in one. A Hitchcock movie!
    For a moment or so she hesitated about going out, but then decided what the heck. Maybe Jack the Janitor went sleepwalking and liked to try on women’s things! And maybe she’d been a little tidier than she remembered; after all, she had been very tired last night, so tired she didn’t even recall reading about Marchwood Castle. She couldn’t explain away Richard’s message, though.
    More than a little rattled, she deliberated about what to do. She still didn’t see the point of informing the police, they’d be certain to think she was imagining things, and there wasn’t much point calling Richard now. It was the middle of the night in Chicago, and when he was away from home he always told hotels not to put calls through to him unless they were urgent. She couldn’t exactly pretend this was urgent, so she’d wait until later before calling. Besides, she wasn’t in the mood to dwell on all this now. She wanted to go see that darned castle.
    Armed with the road atlas she’d bought at Heathrow, she drove south out of Gloucester. It was the same route she’d taken in her dream, but that could be explained because when she’d fallen asleep she’d already seen the map on the back of