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She watched a late-night show on TV, giving it halfhearted attention

So waited within the rooht, she was still certain that Matt hadn’t returned And still, some tian to dreauely, in a subconscious place, she knew that she dreaain This ti to the house

This night, she entered the soul of the woreat sense of fear or urgency Indeed, she’d been angry herself, and ready to fight, argue, speak her oing to bed that night

She was certain that he would not coed between them was too close, too tense, too passionate

She was furious!

By the dian to write He could do what he wanted She couldn’t stop hi to pay

Yet, as she set out to write, pulling out a sheet of stationery with her personal eht Cloudless, allowing even the gibboushills of the countryside beyond theFor a moment, a sense of hesitance settled over her There was so much here, so much between them

Ah, but…

She had been betrayed He had betrayed her

She started to write Froan to howl and bark Oblivious she set to her task, determined The die had been cast

Then…

A sound

Darcy aith a start The sense of sharing another’s drea the past, fell from her as if she had doffed a cloak fro in the shadowed rooled to fathom what had awakened her Had it been the sound she heard within the dream?

No…

She listened, and was certain that she had heard so

Out on the balcony

Footsteps, slow, quiet, furtive

She bit into her lower lip, silent and dead still for a moment Then she slipped from beneath the covers, stepped out of the bed and rose, slowly, quietly Her bare feetbeneath the bed She prayed that a floorboard wouldn’t creak

Carefully, shebehind the softly billowing drapes, she looked out Nothing Nothing, but the entle breeze She

With a sigh, Darcy frowned and walked to the railing

Then she heard it again So…just a sound, a scratch…fro but a whir of darkness She felt the quick whack of so out of the blue

Not hard enough to knock her out Hard enough, however, to er, fall to her knees, cry out

And see nothing ht her hand to her head, more furious than hurt The whack hadn’t been at all deadly, and her head wasn’t spinning As she staggered up, the balcony doors next to her own burst open

And there was Matt Clad in Calvin Klein black knit boxers, and nothingat her as if a lunatic had decided to knock on his door in the ?" he dee She realized that she was standing directly in front of his French doors, disheveled and barely dressed She’d opted for her favorite type of nightgown that night rather than the long T-shirts she often wore to bed It hite, diaphanous Sleeveless, with Victorian lace around the bodice Her hair was all over She ht have rese out here," she said

He lifted a brow, leaned back slightly, and crossed his ar around on the balcony?"

"I don’t think so"

"You don’t think so?"

He was ravated herself, she too crossed her arnity "I heard so out here It woke me"

"Did it whisper in your ear?"

"Stop that, will you? I think that there was someone out here"

"Alive or dead?"

"Someone Alive"

He continued to stare at her skeptically, but then stepped past her She could hear hi beneath his breath, but he did at least seeth of the balcony When he disappeared around the corner, she felt a strange sense of loss and a chill invading her Time seemed to stand on end, to stretch out, and the cold--despite the bal could it take him to walk the circu house, but…

She stared to the left, watching the corner where he had disappeared Hesitantly, she walked toward it herself, then nearly screah heaven when she felt a touch upon her shoulder