Dream Maker Read online

  The lie rolled easily off his tongue. He would lie— and more—to be rid of her, the victim in his latest disturbing dream, who had appeared just as he’d known she eventually would.

  But the fact that she was Tyler Harris stunned him. He’d hired Harris as his research assistant, assuming Tyler to be a man, specifically to avoid this situation. But fate had backfired on him again, proving that his nightmares and the deaths of the women in his dreams would always come true.

  Her gray eyes clouded, and with a trembling hand, she rummaged in the depths of her black leather purse and withdrew a folded paper. “I don’t understand. I have your letter of acceptance right here.”

  He would have a tough time getting rid of her, but he had no choice. “Yes, well, there’s been a terrible mistake—”

  “Mistake? You offered me the job, I accepted, and I’m reporting to work as instructed.” Her wide, innocent stare pierced his conscience.

  He shifted his weight uneasily beneath her scrutiny and breathed deeply, stalling for time. “The offer was a mistake. I can’t hire you.”

  “Can’t—or won’t?”

  “What difference does it make? You can’t have the job.” Knowing he was acting like a cad lent a harsh edge to his voice.

  She stood and paced before the fire, chafing her arms as if to warm them, but the heat of her indignation reached all the way across the room.

  “I gave up my apartment and my previous job to come here, moved across the state—and drove through an ice storm so I wouldn’t report late. Now you tell me the job is filled. You’ll have to do better than that.”

  Regret washed through him. She surpassed the promise of her résumé. In addition to outstanding academic qualifications, Tyler Harris possessed the spark needed to tackle the puzzles confronting him.

  But hiring her would mean her death.

  He steeled himself against her anger. “You may be qualified for the job, but I chose you because I thought Tyler Harris was a man.”

  Her arms dropped to her sides, her hands balled into fists, and an angry flush darkened her face. “You wanted a research assistant. Male or female, what difference does it make?”

  Nothing. Everything.

  He focused on the fire, avoiding the pleasant spectacle of her glowing cheeks, the tendrils of black hair clinging damply to the porcelain skin of her forehead, the rosy softness of her lips. “Neither your acceptance letter nor your application gave any indication you’re a woman. Was that intentional?”

  “Maybe it would have been, thirty years ago—” sarcasm laced her voice “—but we’re out of the Dark Ages now. Sexual discrimination is against the law.”

  He sighed. “You’re right, but I still can’t hire you.”

  Her eyes blazed like burnished pewter. “Is there something about this job that requires a man?”

  Jared remembered his nightmare, but he couldn’t admit he refused to hire her because of a bad dream. “Yes, the job’s too dangerous. You could get hurt.”

  “Doing research?”

  He sensed her sudden stillness and glanced up to find her scrutinizing him. Her face spoke volumes, informing him she knew he lied.

  He levered himself out of his chair, crossed to the open kitchen, and filled the coffeemaker with water. Her footsteps followed, and while he measured grounds into the basket, her stare stabbed between his shoulder blades. Tension crackled like electricity in the confines of the small kitchen, and after flipping the switch to begin the brewing cycle, he turned to confront her.

  She didn’t retreat from his stare. Her eyes widened, and the soft wings of dark eyebrows lifted above them. “Are you afraid to work with a woman?”

  He burst out laughing. “Not at all.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I told you, there’s risk involved.”

  “What kind of risk?” Her expression mirrored her doubt.

  “You could be killed.”

  Alarm flitted across her lovely features before she straightened her shoulders and laughed. “By what, a falling reference book? I’m a researcher, for Pete’s sake.”

  He couldn’t tell her the truth. No one knew the whole truth, and he had no intention of telling all to anyone except his research assistant—and then, only if he was convinced the man could be trusted.

  The heady floral scent of her perfume blended with the aroma of coffee brewing, provoking his senses. She refused to believe she was in danger, so he would try another tack that might seem more plausible.

  “Okay, I confess. We’re miles from the nearest house, and people around here are pretty conservative. I don’t want any scandal created by working with a female assistant.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Lake Toxaway’s a summerresort town with a seasonal population. Most don’t care who does what, as long as they’re not affected.”

  Persistence might be an excellent quality in a researcher, but in someone he was trying to get rid of, it was a royal pain. “Then let’s just say I don’t like women, don’t want one hanging around, and let it go at that,” he lied.

  He pulled a mug from the cabinet and slammed it onto the counter. Damn the woman. If an ice storm wasn’t raging, he would show her the door and be done with her.

  “No, I won’t let it go. You promised me this job, and I drove all the way across the state to take it. If you have a problem with that, Mr. Misogynist, you’d better swallow it or I’ll put the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on your case so fast, you won’t know what hit you.”

  His admiration of her gutsy stance dissolved into alarm. A federal investigation was the last thing he needed. He couldn’t allow anyone to stop him from doing what had to be done. And how could he explain the real reason he couldn’t hire her? No one would believe him.

  The steely glint in her eyes, the jut of her jaw and the determined set of her shoulders convinced him Tyler Harris didn’t make idle threats. He would have to find some way to placate her without giving her the job.

  Tyler turned on her heel, marched back to her chair in front of the fire, and sank into it. She grasped the leather armrests to hide the trembling in her hands while she attempted to gauge whether he was serious about the danger or just using it as an excuse.

  She’d made the break she’d needed from Gran and Chapel Hill. If she crawled back now, jobless and homeless, asking Gran for a place to stay until she found work, she would be paraded before an unending stream of incredibly bland and boring young men—the blue-blooded, spineless type Gran wanted her to marry. If Gran had her way, Tyler would spend the rest of her days raising well-mannered children and prize roses and giving insipid bridge parties, all from Gran’s antebellum home in Chapel Hill—and from under Gran’s thumb.

  But at least you would be alive.

  A quiver of anxiety shook her as she considered her enigmatic host. As much as she wanted the job and its very generous pay, she had to consider her safety. She thought longingly of the snug little motel in the valley. She could spend the night there, then check with the local authorities to learn more about Slater before pressing him to hire her—or giving up and returning home.

  She rose to her feet. “Maybe we should talk about this tomorrow. I’ll come back—”

  “The roads are too treacherous. You’ll never make it down the mountain. Let me pour you some coffee. Then we’ll talk.”

  She wondered if he’d had a change of heart. The tension in the room had eased once she’d threatened to call in the EEOC. Had he thrown in the towel, knowing his statement about not liking women would be just cause for a lawsuit? Or was he only biding his time until the storm ended so he could send her on her way?

  A blast of wind struck the house, rattling the windows and doors. The lights flickered, and Jared disappeared into a room off the kitchen. When he returned a few minutes later, he carried two Coleman lanterns and a handful of candles. After depositing them on the table in front of the sofa, he took brass candlesticks from the mantel and placed the candles in them.
/>
  “If the ice continues,” he said, “the weight of frozen branches will break the power lines. I’ll fix some dinner while we still have electricity.”

  Without waiting for her response, he returned to the galley kitchen and began removing items from the refrigerator, placing them on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room.

  Silence thundered in the room. If they were to be stuck together until the storm passed, she would hold her tongue about the job. If he really was dangerous, as the stranger had warned, she didn’t want to antagonize him. She left her comfortable chair and perched on a high stool extracted from beneath the counter’s overhang.

  He regarded her with a tentative smile, as if the expression was foreign to his face. Maybe he wasn’t the ogre he pretended, but she couldn’t be certain. She would wait for the wind to drop, then she would leave, but in the meantime, she would play along. She just hoped she was doing the right thing. The job had sounded so wonderful that perhaps she’d been too hasty in her response.

  “May I help?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “It’s a simple meal—just spaghetti and salad.”

  The green flecks in his brown eyes matched the jade of his cable-knit sweater. He pushed its sleeves toward his elbows, and the corded muscles of his tanned forearms bulged as his long fingers coaxed the cork from a bottle of Chianti classico. Strong hands, strong enough to-—She thrust the gruesome thought away. She would have to keep her wits to determine the best time to leave.

  He poured a generous amount of Chianti into two wineglasses and handed her one.

  “Cheers.” The wine blossomed on her tongue and warmed her going down.

  Jared’s expression sobered as he touched his glass to hers. “Long life.”

  Another blast of howling wind rocked the house, and she shuddered, wondering if her uneasiness came from the storm or from the strange look in Jared Slater’s eyes.

  He pulled a chopping board from beneath the counter and began slicing vegetables for a salad, displaying his skill with a chef’s knife.

  The sight of the gleaming blade reinforced her memory of the stranger’s remark that pretty women who spent time around Jared turned up dead. Her nervousness deepened. “Did you mean what you said about not liking women?”

  He paused from slicing celery into julienne strips. The silver blade of the huge knife glinted ominously in the firelight. “I meant what I said about not wanting a female research assistant.”

  “I was speaking in generalities,” she said with a jittery laugh.

  “Then, generally speaking, some of my best friends were women.”

  Were. Had he purposely used the past tense? She’d read in a Richmond gossip column about Jared’s withdrawal to his mountain retreat after his release from hospital. Maybe he’d abandoned his friends entirely. But if so, why? Or even worse, maybe his female friends were dead.

  The man was a seething bundle of contradictions. He’d advertised, specifying an immediate need for a research assistant, but then had rejected her, even though she was on the spot and ready to work, because he didn’t want a woman around. Yet his demeanor, aside from not wanting to hire her, had been considerate, almost friendly—once she’d threatened to file discrimination charges. The man was hiding something, and her grandmother’s warning about working for a stranger rang in her mind once more.

  Gran. She’d be worried sick about her granddaughter traveling in the storm. Tyler had declared her independence by moving away from the only home she’d known since her parents’ plane crash twelve years before, but that independence didn’t include thoughtlessness toward the old woman who loved her.

  “Mind if I use your phone?” she asked. “I want to let my grandmother know I’m safe.”

  Jared pointed with the knife. “Top of the stairs. While you’re making the call, I’ll pull your car into the garage and bring in your luggage. You can stay until the roads clear.”

  She would be leaving long before bedtime, but for now she would do as he asked. She handed him her keys, then climbed the steep stairs to the loft. Opposite the half wall that overlooked the great room, French doors provided a panoramic view of the valley and lake below. Snow swirled in eddies across the balcony, sifting over glittering ice that coated the balustrade and wooden decking.

  She circled the bed to a small nightstand that held the telephone and switched on the bedside light. Next to the phone, bold, scrawling words caught her eye. And then, with horror, she found herself reading a description of a woman’s murder in graphic detail. Beneath the legal pad, she discovered a folder of glossy black-and-white photos of two murdered women. Newspaper clippings gave their names and the places of their deaths and stated they’d been shot, but did not identify their killer.

  The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Were these women the ones the stranger had meant?

  Get a hold of yourself. Jared was a writer. He could be working on an article or maybe even a true-crime novel. She shoved the pad and folder aside, reined in her galloping imagination, and dialed Gran’s number.

  “Thank God you called,” her grandmother drawled in her soft Southern voice. “I’ve been frantic with worry.”

  She pictured her grandmother, patting her smooth gray curls with manicured fingers. Gran was probably still dressed in the lilac suede suit she’d worn that morning to the garden club. Tyler anticipated a wave of homesickness, but experienced only a strong affection for the woman who had raised her.

  “I’m fine, Gran. Arrived safe and sound before the storm set in. I can’t talk but a minute—dinner’s almost ready—but I’ll call again next week. We may lose phone lines that long because of the ice.”

  “And what about this Jared Slater?”

  “He’s different from what I expected.” Tyler grimaced at the understatement. No need to frighten Gran.

  She chatted for a moment, then hung up the phone and studied the bedroom, looking for some clue to her host’s personality, but the sparsely furnished loft, with its wide bed covered in a muted plaid spread, and Shaker chair, revealed little. A wall of doors concealed closets on one side, and opposite them a door opened into a bathroom. Utilitarian but comfortable, the room told her nothing about Jared Slater’s character.

  She stood at the French doors and watched snow mounding on the balcony. Unless it stopped soon, she would be stuck on the mountain overnight. Time enough to convince Jared to give her the job. Or time enough to be in mortal danger if he really was dangerous, as the stranger had implied.

  She turned from the window and bumped into Jared. Jerking aside, she clutched her pounding heart. “I didn’t hear you come up.”

  He gazed past her over the valley below. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Peaceful. As if there isn’t a trouble anywhere in the world.”

  She bit back her reply. She had a full load of trouble, wondering when the storm would end and how she could make her escape.

  Jared stretched and rolled his head on his shoulders as if awakening from sleep. “I’ll show you your room and where to wash up before dinner.”

  She followed him downstairs into a narrow hallway leading off the great room. His broad shoulders filled the passageway, but for a big man, he moved with appealing grace. Still, he was big enough to overpower an unarmed female. She gave herself a mental shake. If it hadn’t been for the crazy man’s warning at the service station, she would have considered Jared’s size a turn-on, not a threat.

  The first door he opened led to a gleaming bathroom. The next revealed a bedroom with twin beds covered in cheerful red chenille spreads. Plaid draperies were drawn against the cold. Her suitcases and laptop computer, a going-away present from Gran, lay on one of the beds.

  “Dinner’s ready when you are. I’ll leave you to unpack.” He headed back up the narrow hall toward the kitchen.

  No need to unpack. After seeing the pictures in his room, she was fairly sure she no longer wanted the job. She would only be there until the storm ended, which she hope
d would be within a few hours. With relief she noted a key in the lock of the bedroom door. At least, if she had to spend the night, she could sleep feeling safe.

  In the bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face and stared at her reflection. Her thoughts were as tangled as her hair.

  “Tyler Harris, what have you gotten yourself into?”

  The woman in the mirror stared back, silent. She knew a loaded question when she heard one.

  After taming her hair, she returned to the great room but paused in the doorway, taking in the change in the room. Jared had moved the coffee table in front of the fire and flanked it with two large cushions. Covered with a checkered cloth and centered with brass candlesticks, the table was set for two.

  “Pull up a pillow,” he said. “I’ll bring the food.”

  She sat cross-legged at the table as Jared placed salad, breadsticks, and a steaming bowl of spaghetti in front of her. He smiled with a grin that cocked one corner of his mouth.

  As if on cue, the wind slammed against the house in a brutal gust. The kitchen lights winked and went out, leaving only the feeble glow from the fire, flickering candles, and the mysterious glitter in Jared Slater’s eyes to illuminate the room.

  THE STRANGER BENT his shoulder into the wind and trudged through the snowdrifts toward the lights that were barely visible ahead. Stupid Southerners. They acted as if a little weather was excuse to shut down everything, but it wouldn’t stop him. The Blazer’s four-wheel drive had brought him easily to the foot of Slater’s driveway, and his snowshoes would take him the rest of the way.

  He could reach the house, kill Slater, and disappear. The snow would cover his tracks long before anyone discovered the body on the mountaintop. The cold bit through his leather coat, but the fire of revenge in his belly kept him warm as he climbed the hill and maneuvered toward the lighted window.

  Two women had already died and Slater knew too much. The man had to be stopped. The bulk of the stranger’s magnum revolver lay heavy against his chest. He had shot and killed before, but that, too, had been a necessity. Only with Slater’s death would the killing cease.