Drowning Read Online Free

safe.
    He would want to know where I was. Probably, the police would have told him that I was at Leopard Rock estate. They might even have mentioned Nicholas’s name to him, which gave me a sick feeling inside and ruled out the easiest explanation, the one I’d been tempted to give my husband: that after being washed off the bridge, I had landed up in an all-female commune, or possibly even a nunnery.
    Still, I could always emphasize to Vince that I had barely seen Mr. de Lanoy, that he’d been sorting out flood damage in another part of the estate and I had been cared for by his wife. That would be a workable explanation.
    With that problem solved, my eyelids became too heavy for me to resist and I closed them. I would think of Vince now, as I fell asleep. Then, when we saw each other again, I could tell him I’d done so; that as I’d floated away I’d had him in my mind. His whipcord-lean body and sharp, angular cheekbones. His dark eyes and shiny dark hair, cut and styled to perfection. The way his lean-fingered hands looked as they cradled his camera. How, the first time we’d kissed, he’d stared deep into my eyes and then…
    The blaze of pale blue eyes meeting mine and the warm touch of a strong hand keeping me from the darkness and my own confusion… the sense of a powerful, masculine presence by my side. Watching those sculpted lips as he’d spoken to me in that deep, compelling voice…
    Hey—hang on a minute. I was supposed to be thinking about Vince here. How exactly had Nicholas de Lanoy managed to sneak into my mind instead? I tried to push him out but his presence wouldn’t leave me, and in the end, I gave up the battle and drifted away with the memory of Nicholas’s fingers on mine.

    I surfaced from my sleep as if coming up through water, pushing my way through the tangled reeds and tendrils of my dreams, lingering in the sun-warmed shallows where my skin was caressed by its gentle touch. I stretched, feeling it lap over my breasts and flow under my thighs, lifting me, buoying me up…
    “Erin. Erin?”
    I blinked, the familiar deep gold of the voice pulling me back to reality even while I knew I was hearing it only in my dream.
    Then I opened my eyes to hear knocking at the door.
    “Come in,” I mumbled.
    The door opened and Miriam bustled inside.
    “Good evening,” she said.
    Evening?
    I sat up, staring at the dull gold light coming from beyond the pale curtain on the western window.
    “I’ve slept all day. I’m so sorry,” I told her. “I wanted to take you up on your kind offer to be shown around the lodge.”
    “Whenever you are ready,” she said. “And now, Mr. Nicholas has said you should get up, so I have come to take you outside to the lapa . I will wait while you get dressed.”
    Giving me a cheerful smile, she retreated outside, closing the door gently behind her.
    The lapa ? What was a lapa ?
    I peeked quickly through the western window on my way to the bathroom. The setting sun blazed, red and intense, through the dissipating storm clouds. On the horizon I saw the craggy silhouette of a mountain flanked by rolling, bushy hills whose slopes looked somehow dark and forbidding in the fading light.
    I dressed quickly, putting on my own jeans, and chose a long-sleeved, clingy black jersey top from my limited wardrobe in case it was cold. Who did these spare clothes belong to anyway, I wondered. More than likely, I decided, there was in fact a Mrs. Nicholas and I would meet her this evening.
    I was feeling more like myself again. Clearly, my body had now recovered from the near-death experience, and my mind felt sharper, too.
    With a spring in my step, I left the bedroom and followed Miriam to the lodge’s front entrance. Low-wattage bulbs were set in torchiers at intervals along the walls, giving the place a medieval feel. The front door was an enormous, carved slab of wood and I wondered what kind of giant tree it had come from. Outside, the air felt astonishingly fresh and