Trusting a Stranger by Kimberley Brown Page A

shiver, a movement that started in her cheek where Ethan touched her and spread down her throat and through her body until she swayed. She closed her eyes and gripped more tightly onto the doorknob. She did not like this. She did not like this control that Ethan seemed to have over her — or rather, that Ethan’s body seemed to have over hers.
    She did not like it at all.
    She loved it.
    No, she didn’t.
    â€˜Goodnight,’ she said again, unnecessarily, as she twisted the doorknob around and pressed into the darkened room beyond.
    A moment later, the light was on, the door was closed, and she was alone. Hayley leaned back against the wall and drew a deep breath as she considered her surroundings. It was a rather small room, built to the same dimensions, she suspected, as Katy’s room, immediately downstairs. The walls were as white as in the dining room, and as freshly painted.
    A wide, soft bed with fat welcoming pillows was covered with a throw of rough-woven white and pushed against the wall behind a spongy cream rug. There was a fluffy bathrobe draped over the end of the bed and a bookcase at its foot, once shelf bare apart from a clean glass and a bar of soap resting upon a fluffy green towel.
    Ethan had obviously set this room up for guests, not necessarily for her. There had not been time today for all of this. Perhaps he was used to having people come to stay. Perhaps he was less of a recluse here than her experience so far had suggested.
    Whatever it meant about his familiarity with guests, the details meant she could be comfortable.
    Hayley was grateful for that as she slipped out of her skirt and blouse and into the bathrobe provided. Then she opened the door a crack and peeked out. There was no one around. Half-disappointed, she collected the towel and soap and made for the bathroom.
    Only ten minutes later she was clean and ready to climb into bed. The room was warm, the window open. It was barred of course — Ethan was the most security-conscious man she had ever known, and now that she had heard the story about Katy, she understood why — but the shutters behind had been left open and, through them, moonlight streamed in widely over the floor. Far away, the ruins of an ancient amphitheatre were illuminated. She imagined the plays that would have been staged there once upon a time. All that ancient drama about good and evil and fate. The fate that Ethan said he didn’t believe in.
    Hayley had just pulled back the bed covers and felt that the sheets were indeed as soft as they looked when a piercing alarm rang out, splitting the evening.
    Thump.
    That was her foot on the floor. She span around, wide eyed and quickly retying the cord of the bathrobe that she had been about to let slide down off the bed. Then she ran for the door.
    The light in the hall had already been turned on and was a straight, bright line beneath her door as she ran for it and flung it open.
    There were footsteps, heavy ones, sounding on the stairs, going downwards and away from her. Ethan, going down to make sure Katy was all right.
    Hayley darted along the hall, following.
    She could hear the heavy footsteps moving on before her as she ran. Ethan wouldn’t mind if she checked too, Hayley reasoned. He could hardly expect her to stay in her room while this was going on, still less that she might actually be asleep.
    In a moment the footsteps would stop and another light would be switched on and she would hear the heavy wooden sound of Katy’s door being opened.
    But then the footsteps reached what must have been the landing below, and kept on going. Hayley paused at the lower, still dark hall, puzzled.
    Katy’s door was still closed. Katy’s father was continuing to run.
    It could only mean he had more information about the source of the alarm and was going there instead. Hayley regarded the closed door for another long moment. Ethan had said Katy was uninterested in coming down for dinner and