A Very Gothic Christmas Read online

  Tara slid close to Jessica for comfort. Immediately Jessica pulled the girl into her arms, stroking the dark, wavy hair with gentle fingers. Beside her, Trevor shifted, but Jessica caught his wrist in a silent signal and he remained silent. His arms went around both Jessica and Tara, holding them close to him. The silence stretched to apprehension.

  Dillon stirred then, straightening from where he had been leaning lazily against the doorframe. Dillon walked over to stand in front of his children. Very gently he caught Tara’s chin in the palm of his gloved hand and lifted her face so that her blue eyes met his. “I’m looking forward to Christmas this year, Tara, it’s been far too long for me without laughter and fun. Thank you for giving the holiday back to me.” He bent his head and kissed her forehead. “I apologize for my friend’s rudeness. He’s obviously forgotten, in his old age, how fun holidays can be.”

  He touched his son then, his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I would greatly appreciate it if you and your sister would go out this evening before it gets too dark and find us the best tree you can. If we weren’t in the middle of working this song I’d go with you. You find it and we’ll go together to get it tomorrow evening.” His fingers tightened momentarily as his heart leapt with joy. His son. His daughter. The terrible darkness that had consumed him for so long was slowly receding. His body actually trembled with the intensity of his emotions. He had never dared to dream of the two beloved faces staring up at him with such confidence and faith. “I’m trusting you to take care of your sister, Trevor.”

  Trevor swelled visibly. He glanced at Jessica, a tremor running through him, his hands tightening until his fingers dug into Jessica’s arm. She smiled up at him with reassurance. With understanding. She could not allow her fears to take the pleasure from all of them. Especially when she didn’t even know if her fears were grounded in reality. When she looked back at Dillon her feelings were naked on her face.

  Dillon’s breath caught in his chest. There was raw love on Jessica’s face, in her eyes. She looked up at him as no other in his life ever had. Complete confidence, unconditional love. There was never a hidden agenda with Jessica. She loved his children completely, fiercely, protectively. And she was beginning to love him the same way. “You and Tara go now before it gets dark. I have some business matters to discuss.”

  Trevor nodded his understanding, grinning triumphantly at Don. He led Tara out of the room, urging her to hurry to get her jacket so they wouldn’t lose the light they needed.

  Dillon reached down and took Jessica’s hand, raised it to the warmth of his mouth. His blue gaze burned into her green one. Mesmerizing her. Holding her captive with his sensual spell, in front of all the band members, he slowly pressed a kiss into the exact center of her palm, blatantly branding her. Staking his claim.

  Jessica could feel hot tears burning behind her eyes, clogging her throat. Dillon. Her Dillon. He was coming back to life. The miracle of Christmas. The story her mother had so often told her at night. There was a special power at Christmas, a shimmering, translucent, positive, force that flowed steadily, that was there for the taking. One had only to believe in it, to reach for it. Jessica reached with both hands, with her heart and soul. Dillon needed her, needed his children. He had only to open his heart again and believe with her.

  Dillon tugged on her hand, drew her to him so that her soft curves fit against the hard strength of his body. Then he turned his head above hers toward Don, pinning the man with a gaze of icy cold fury. “Don’t you ever speak that way to my children again. Not ever, Don. If you have a gripe with me, feel free to tear into me, but never try to get to me through my children.” There was a promise of swift and brutal retaliation in his voice.

  Jessica looked up into his face and shivered. Dillon was different now, no matter how many glimpses she caught of the person she had once known.

  “You want me out, don’t you, Wentworth? You’ve always wanted me out. It’s always been about ‘Precious Paul’ with you. You’re loyal to him no matter what he does,” Don snarled. “I worked hard, but I never got the recognition. You’ve always resented me being in the band. Paul,” he gestured toward the man sitting ramrod stiff in the chair by the window. “He can do anything and you forgive him.”

  “You’re not so innocent, Don.” Brenda yawned and lazily waved a dismissing hand. “You musicians are so dramatic. Who cares who loves whom best? At least Paul didn’t use his lover to get him into the band.”

  Dillon’s head snapped up, his eyes glittering. “What the hell are you talking about, Brenda?”

  Jessica glanced around the room. Everyone had gone still, looking nervous, guilty, even Paul. Don flushed a dull red. His eyes shifted away from Dillon.

  Brenda winced. “Ouch. How was I to know you were kept in the dark?” Dillon’s relentless blue gaze continued to bore into her. “Fine, blame me, I’m always in trouble. I thought you knew; everyone else certainly knew.”

  Dillon’s fingers tightened around Jessica’s hand. She could feel the tension running through his body. He was trembling slightly. She shifted closer to him, silently offering support.

  “Tell me now, Brenda.”

  For the first time, Jessica saw Brenda hesitate. For a moment she looked uncertain and vulnerable. Then her expression changed and she shrugged her shoulders carelessly, her tinkling laugh a little forced. “Oh for heaven’s sake, what’s the big deal? It was a million years ago. It’s not as if you thought Vivian had been faithful.”

  Jessica felt him take the blow in his heart. It was a gut-wrenching jolt that shook him, turned his stomach so that for a moment he had to fight to breathe, to keep from being sick. She felt his struggle as clearly as if she were experiencing it herself. Dillon’s face never changed expression, he didn’t so much as blink. He could have been carved from stone, but Jessica felt the turmoil raging in him.

  “So Viv had an affair with Don, no big deal,” Brenda shrugged again. “She got him into the band. You needed a bass player—it all worked out.”

  “Viv and I weren’t having problems when Don joined the band,” Dillon said. His voice held no expression and he didn’t look at Don.

  Brenda inspected her long nails. “You know Viv, she had problems, she always had to be with someone. You were working on songs for the band, trying to help Paul. If you weren’t with her every minute, she felt neglected.”

  Dillon waited a heartbeat of time. A second. A third. He was aware of Jessica, of her hand, of her body, but there was a strange roaring in his head. His gaze shifted, settled on Don. “You were sleeping with my wife and playing in my band, allowing me to believe you were my friend?” He remembered how hard he had tried to make Don feel a part of the band.

  Don’s mouth tightened perceptibly. “You knew, everyone knew. It was no secret Viv liked to pick up a man now and then. And you got what you wanted. A bass player to kick around, someone to put up with your wife’s tantrums when you didn’t have the time or inclination to put up with her yourself. I won’t even mention the extra money you saved because she was always wanting me to buy her things. I’d say we were more than even.”

  Dillon remained silent, only a muscle jerked along his jaw, betraying his inner turmoil.

  “She was a bloodsucker,” Don continued, looking around the room for support.

  “She was ill,” Dillon corrected softly.

  “She had no loyalty and she was as cold as ice,” Don insisted. “Damn it, Dillon, you had to have known about us.”

  When Dillon continued to look at him, Don dropped his gaze again. “I thought that was why you didn’t want me in the band.”

  “Your own guilt made you think I didn’t want you in the band.” Dillon’s voice was very soft, yet deep inside he was screaming at Jessica to help him. To stop him from saying or doing anything crazy. To save him. There had been such a surge of hope in him. A spreading warmth, a belief that he might reclaim his life. In a blink it was gone. He felt ice-cold inside. Emotionless. His heart and soul had
been torn out Everything he had built or cared about had been destroyed. He thought it had all been taken from him, but there was more, gouging old wounds to deepen them, to reopen them. He was shattering, crumbling, piece by piece until there was nothing left of who he had been.

  “Damn it, Dillon, you had to have known,” Don was almost pleading.

  Dillon shook his head slowly. “I can’t discuss this right now. No, I didn’t know, I had no idea. I always thought of you as my friend. I did my best to understand you. I trusted you. I thought our friendship was genuine.”

  Jessica reached up and touched his face. Gently. Lovingly. “Take me out of here, Dillon. Right now. I want to be away from here.” More than anything she wanted to get him away from treachery and betrayal. He had just begun to emerge into the sun after a long, bleak, cold winter. She could feel hands pulling him away from her, back into the deeper shadows. She kept her voice soft, persuasive. Her hands stroked his jaw, the pad of her thumb caressed his lips, a brush of a caress that centered his attention on her. His vivid blue gaze met hers. She saw the dangerous emotions swirling in the depths of his eyes.

  Jessica tugged at him, forced him to move away from the others, out of the kitchen. She guided him through the house up to his private floor. He went with her willingly enough, but she could still feel the edge of violence in him, roiling and swirling all too close to the surface.

  “I learned a lot of things about myself when I was at the burn center,” Dillon said, as he pushed open the door to his study and stepped back to allow her to precede him. “There’s so much pain, Jess, unbelievable pain. You think you can’t bear any more, but there’s always more. Every minute, every second, it’s a matter of endurance. You have no choice but to endure it because it never goes away. There’s no way to sleep through it, you have to persevere.”

  The room was dark with the shadows of the late afternoon but he didn’t turn on the light. Outside, the wind set the tree branches in motion so that they brushed gently against the sides of the house, producing an eerie music. Inside the room the silence stretched between them as they faced one another. Jessica could feel the turbulence of his emotions, wild, chaotic, yet on the surface he was as still as a hunter. She knew his strength of will, knew why he had survived such a terrible injury. Dillon was a man of deep passions. He sounded as if he was describing his physical pain, but she knew he was telling her about the other kinds of pain he’d also endured. The emotional scars were every bit as painful and deep as the physical ones.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Jess, it’s too dangerous.” He warned her softly, even as he moved to close the distance between them. “I don’t want to hurt you. You can’t look at me with your beautiful eyes so damn trusting. I’m not the man you think I am and I never will be.” Even as he uttered the words aloud, meaning every one of them, his hands, of their own volition, were framing her face.

  Electricity arced and crackled, a sizzling whip dancing with white-hot heat through their blood. The heat from his body seeped into hers, warming her, drawing her like a magnet. His head was bending toward her, his dark silky hair spilling around his angel’s face like a cloud. Jessica’s breath caught in her lungs. There was no air to breathe, no life other than his perfectly sculpted lips. His mouth settled over hers, velvet soft and firm. The touch was tantalizing. She opened her mouth as his teeth tugged teasingly at her lips to give him entrance to her sweetness, to the dark secrets of passion and promise.

  Dillon closed his eyes to savor the taste of her, the hot silk of her. There was sheer magic in Jessica’s kiss. It was madness to indulge his craving for her, but he couldn’t stop, taking his time, leisurely exploring, swept away from the gray bleakness of his nightmare world into one of vivid colorful fireworks, bursting around him, in him. The need was instantaneous and elemental, the hunger, voracious. His body was all at once savagely alive, thick and hard and pounding with an edgy, greedy lust that shook him to the foundations of his soul. He’d never experienced it before, but now, it surged through his body, primitive and hot, demanding that he make her his.

  Jessica felt his mouth harden, change, felt the passion flair between them, hot and exciting, a rush that dazzled her every sense. Her body melted into his, pliant and soft and inviting. His mouth raged with hunger, devoured hers, dominating and persuasive and commanding her response. She gave herself up to the blazing world of sheer sensation, allowed him to take her far from reality.

  The earth seemed to shift and move out from under her feet as his palms slid over her back, down to her bottom, where they settled to align her body more firmly with his. His touch was slow and languorous, at odds with his assaulting mouth. His tongue plundered, his hands coaxed. His mouth was aggressive, his hands gentle.

  Dillon’s body was a hard, painful ache, his jeans stretched tight, cutting into him. The feel of her, so soft and pliant, was driving him slowly out of his mind. There was a strange roaring in his head; his blood felt thick and molten like lava. She tasted hot and sweet. He couldn’t get close enough to her, wanting her clothes gone so that he could press himself against her, skin to skin.

  His mouth left hers to travel along her throat, with playful little kisses and bites, his tongue swirling to find shadows and hollows, to reach little trigger points of sheer pleasure. When he found them, she rewarded him with a little gasp of bliss. The sound was music to him, a soft note that drowned out his every sane thought. He didn’t want sanity, he didn’t want to know that what he was doing was wrong. He wanted to bury his body deep inside of her, to lose himself forever in a firestorm of mindless feeling.

  His mouth found the hollow of her throat, the pulse beating so frantically there. He nudged aside the neckline of her blouse to find the swell of her breasts. She was soft, a miracle of satin skin. His hand closed over her breast, her taut nipple pushing into his palm through her blouse, through his glove. Beckoning. Urging him on. He bent his head to temptation.

  The door to Dillon’s study burst open and Tara stood there, her face white, her hair wildly disheveled. There was sheer panic on her face. “You have to come right now. Right now! Jessica! Hurry, oh, God, I think he’s crushed under the logs and dirt. Hurry, you have to hurry!”

  chapter

  8

  PANIC SENT ADRENALINE coursing through Jessica’s body. She looked up at Dillon, sheer terror in her eyes. His eyes mirrored her fear. He circled Jessica’s waist with one strong arm, pulling her tight against him so that, briefly, they leaned into one another, comforting them both.

  “Take a deep breath, Tara, we need to know what happened.” Dillon’s voice was calm and authoritative. He pulled the child into the circle of his arms, up against Jessica where she felt safe.

  Tara gulped back her tears, buried her face against Jessica’s shoulder. “I don’t know what happened. One minute we were walking along and then Trevor said something weird, it didn’t make sense, something about a magic circle and he ran ahead of me. I heard him yell and then there was a huge noise. The side of a hill gave way, rocks and dirt and logs rolling down. His yell was cut off and when I got to where I thought he was, the air was all dirty and cloudy. I couldn’t find him and when I called and called, he didn’t answer me. I think he was buried under all of it. The dog started digging and barking and growling and I ran to get you.”

  “Show me, Tara,” Dillon commanded. “Jessica, you’ll have to find the others, tell Paul we’ll need shovels just in case.” He was already pushing his daughter ahead of him.

  They ran down the stairs, Dillon calling for the band members. As he jerked open the front door and raced across the front verandah, he nearly knocked Brian back down the front steps. They steadied one another. “It’s Trevor. It sounds bad, Brian, come with me,” Dillon said.

  Brian nodded. “Where are the others?”

  “Jess is rounding them up,” Dillon replied. Tara ran ahead of him, but he kept pace easily, swearing under his breath. Night was falling all too fast and it would be very dark
in a matter of minutes. He prayed his daughter didn’t get lost, that she could lead them straight to his son.

  Tara ran fast, keeping to the main path, her heart pounding loudly in her ears, but terror had subsided now that her father was taking command. He seemed so calm, so completely in control, that she felt her panic fading. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to find the exact location in the dark so she ran as fast as she could in an attempt to outrun the nightfall. It was even more of a relief when the large German shepherd came bounding out of the timberline to pace beside her. He knew the way to Trevor.

  Jessica took several deep breaths as she hurried through the large house calling for the others. She found Brenda outside the kitchen, in the courtyard, smoking. “What is it now? I swear there’s no rest for the wicked around this place.”

  “Where are the others?” Jessica demanded. Brenda’s chic hiking boots were covered in mud. Pine needles were stuck to the bottom and Brenda was trying to remove them without getting her fingernails dirty. “There’s been an accident and we need everyone to help.”

  “Oh good heavens, it’s those kids again, isn’t it?” Brenda sounded annoyed. She backed up a step holding up a placating hand as Jessica advanced on her. “Really, darling, you wear me out with your agonizing over those children. See? I’m learning. Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll do my part to help, although I hope you send them both to their rooms and punish them suitably for disrupting my day.”

  “Where are the others?” Jessica spit each word out distinctly. “This is an emergency, Brenda. I think Trevor is trapped under a landslide, under dirt and rocks. We need to dig him out fast.”

  “Surely not!” Brenda’s hand fluttered to her throat and she paled visibly. Her throat worked as if she was struggling to speak but no words would come. When they did, it was a choked whisper. “This place really is cursed, or maybe just Dillon is.”