Quickly, she whirled, staring at the space behind her. It was empty. Well, except for two lines of chairs, tables, chests, and a few other pieces. The front row was finished and ready for delivery to retail outlets. The back row was unpainted wood, ready for her attention.
They all stood exactly where they had been the day before. Yet she couldn’t stop herself from putting down her brush, walking to the front row of furniture, and looking behind the larger pieces—seeing nothing.
Shaking her head, she turned back to the cats. But her next words were for the phantom watcher. In a voice that shook only slightly, she asked, “Well, what do you think? Are the Clarks going to love it?”
She waited for several pounding heartbeats to hear an answer. Of course, nobody responded, and she told herself she was being ridiculous. The invisible man wasn’t in her workshop.
Grimacing, she covered the pallet of acrylic paints she’d been using and brought her brushes to the sink, where she carefully washed and dried them before cleaning the paint off her hands. Although she was determined to ignore the feeling of being watched, she couldn’t shake it. Someone else was here. She knew it. Yet that was impossible.
Finally, as she took off her smock, anger mixed with fear burst through her determination.
First, that damn dream, and now this paranoid feeling that someone was watching her. Were her parents right? Was she destined to come unglued?
Her jaw set defiantly, she struggled to bring herself back on an even keel. But she knew she was too wound up to get any work done.
Because her mind and emotions were churning as she hurried back toward the kitchen door, she wasn’t paying attention to the parts of the walk that needed attention. As she came even with the side of the house, her foot caught on a loose brick, and she pitched forward. With nothing to stop her fall, she was going to end up sprawled in one of the flower beds. Only it didn’t happen.
As she sailed toward the ground, something caught her. No. Not some force of nature. A man. She was sure he had been watching her work. Then he had followed her from the studio, staying close behind her. When he saw her trip, he caught her in his strong arms.
Impossible. There was no one else here. But in that startling moment of not crashing to the ground, it was the only explanation.
With the realization, she felt everything change.
Deep down, she had admitted to herself that she was destined to be a solitary traveler through life, unable to make a lasting, meaningful connection to any other person. Now, as strange as it sounded, she sensed some kind of link forming with the man holding her in his arms.
She wasn’t sure how she recognized it, but she felt a startling sense of completeness. And as it washed over her and sank into her bones, she recognized it for what it was. The thing she had always secretly craved. In that moment of awareness, she closed her eyes and leaned back, enjoying sensations that were new to her. Her senses swam, and at the same time, she was enveloped by something she had never experienced before—the comforting feeling of being cherished and protected.
Somewhere below those extraordinary feelings, she felt a headache pounding inside her skull. Ignoring it, she tipped her head back, using his muscular shoulder for a pillow. Although her eyes were squeezed shut, an image of him came into her mind, clear and distinct. She saw a tall man with angular features and high cheekbones. His dark hair was wind-tossed, his lips were firm, and his chin was a bold statement. His body was lean and supple. She felt hard muscles and sinew, honed from long hours working outside. This man was no desk jockey. When he tipped his head, she felt his breath teasing her ear. She had never liked to be touched. Now she craved it. For long moments, she drifted there, more content than she had ever been in her life. This was something totally different for her, yet she recognized it. This was what she had always assumed she could never have.
Wanting more, she dragged in a deep breath and caught the strong smell of the sea. And as that scent came to her, she startled because it brought back the frightening dream she had struggled so hard to wipe out of her mind.
She gasped, horror gripping her by the throat as reality slammed into her little fantasy of being loved and cherished. Oh lord, this couldn’t be real. What was happening now had to be impossible. Her damaged brain must be making it all up. Yet it took an act of will to shake the feeling that she had come home to the one thing in life she craved most.
Again, the wordimpossiblerang in her mind. Moments ago, she had been alone on the brick walkway, fleeing some imaginary intruder in her studio. And, far from imaginary, he had followed her up the path.
No, that had to be wrong. No one else had been there. No one else was here now. Whatever was happening must be proof that her parents had been right all along.
Terror welled up from the depths of her soul—terror for her hold on sanity.
“Let me go,” she gasped. She must break away. She must ground herself in facts—not a fantasy she had conjured from the depths of a damaged psyche.
Without waiting for him to comply, she tried to pull away.
He was strong. For long seconds, he held on to her with a kind of desperation, as though he couldn’t bear to break the contact. As though nothing was real except the two of them joined here in a phantom embrace.
“Stop! Let me go,” she said again, putting as much force as she could into the words.
The moment she felt his grip loosen, she wrenched herself away, almost falling again. It took several steps to regain her balance before she was sprinting headlong toward the house.
Reaching the kitchen door, she pulled it open, threw herself inside, and turned to shoot the deadbolt. With the barrier between herself and whatever was out of there, she stood shaking, unable to account for what had happened over the last few minutes. Had it been a waking dream? A psychotic break?
Her heart was pounding. Her breath was coming in gasps. Afraid that she might faint, she crossed to the table on shaky legs, pulled out a chair, and plopped onto the wooden seat.
My God, what had happened to her? Once again, the only explanation that came to mind was the madness her parents had predicted.
Turning, she looked out the window beside the door. Was she hoping to see a man standing there? Proof that she hadn’t made up the whole incident? Of course, nobody was there. Nobody was making a tempting offer to fulfill the secret desire that she had barely been able to admit to herself.
Unable to sit still, she jumped up again and paced back and forth across the kitchen. Over the years, she’d done a lot of reading about mental illness. One book she’d picked up wasI Never Promised You a Rose Garden.It was about a teenager who had descended into the clutches of schizophrenia. At first, the imaginary people who came to her were welcoming. Gradually, they turned hostile and controlling, making her life a living hell. That book had taught her that if she ever found herself in the same situation as that girl, she must resist the seduction of the false friends.
