Shades of Twilight

"I’ll see you again some day," he mocked, and dug his heels into the horse’s sides. The startled animal leaped forward, brushing by her so closely that its massive shoulder would have knocked her down if she hadn’t jumped aside.

He rode in the direction of the highway, leaning down to avoid low-hanging branches. He was out of sight in only a moment, though it took longer than that for the thud of the horse’s hooves to fade from her hearing.

Roanna made her way over to a sturdy oak and leaned against it, closing her eyes and shaking.

That had been one of the most foolish, foolhardy things she’d ever done. She had been extremely lucky and she knew it. That man could have seriously hurt her, raped her, maybe even killed her-anything. She had charged headlong into a dangerous situation without stopping to think. Such impulsiveness had been the main cause of trouble in her childhood and had been the trigger for the tragedy of Jessie’s death and Webb’s leaving.

She had thought that the reckless streak had been destroyed forever, but now she found, to her distress, that it still lurked deep inside, ready to leap to the fore. She probably would have found it before, if anything had made her angry. But horses weren’t abused at Davencourt, and it had been a long time since she had allowed herself to care about much of anything at all. Webb had been gone, and the endless procession of days had all been flat and dreary.

She was still shaking in the aftermath of fear and rage, and her legs wobbled beneath her. She drew in deep breaths, trying to will herself to calmness. She couldn’t go home like this, with her self-control so paper-thin. Anyone who saw her would know that something had happened, and she didn’t want to rehash the whole thing and listen to the recriminations. She knew she’d been stupid, and lucky.

But more than that, she didn’t want anyone to see the break in her composure. She was embarrassed and terrified by this unexpected vulnerability. She had to protect herself better than that. She couldn’t do anything about her permanent weakness where Webb was concerned, but neither could her internal wall withstand any additional weaknesses.

When her legs felt steady enough, she left the woods and waded back across the field of weeds, this time taking care to avoid the briers. Her right ankle twinged with pain, reminding her that she had twisted it.

When she reached her car, she sat down sideways in the driver’s seat, with her legs outside. Bending down, she took off her shoes and shook the dirt out of them. After a quick look around assured her that there were no cars on the road, she swiftly reached under her skirt and peeled off her shredded panty hose. She used the ruined garment to wipe

off her shoes as best she could, then slipped them back on her bare feet.

There were tissues in her purse. She got one, wet it with her tongue, and rubbed at the scratches on her legs until the tiny beads of blood were gone. That, and a passage of a brush through her hair, was the best she could do. To be on the safe side, however, she would use her old childhood trick of going up the outside stairs to the second floor and circling around to her room.

She didn’t know who that man was, but she hoped she never saw him again.

It was just like old times, trying to slip into her room without anyone seeing her. Back then, though, she had usually been trying to hide after committing some mischief or social faux pas. The confrontation with that unknown brute was far more serious. There was also the difference that now she was mature enough to admit her foolishness rather than tell whoppers to try to hide it. She wouldn’t lie if asked, but still she had no intention of blurting out what had happened.

Roanna made it into her room without incident. Quickly she stripped and stepped into the shower, wincing as the water stung the scratches on her legs. After thoroughly washing, the best protection against any possible encounter with poison ivy that might have been lurking in the weeds and among the trees, she dabbed the scratches with an antiseptic, then followed that with a soothing application of pure aloe gel. The stinging stopped almost immediately, and without that constant reminder of the unsettling encounter, her nerves began to calm.

A few flips of the brush restored her hair to order, and three minutes spent applying an array of cosmetics hid any lingering sign of upset. Roanna stared in the mirror at the

T_

sophisticated reflection; sometimes she was surprised by the image that looked back, as if it wasn’t really her. Thank God for her sorority sisters, she thought. Most of the passages of her life had been marked by loss: the death of her parents, Jessie’s murder, Webb’s departure. College had been one passage, however, that had been good, and the credit for that belonged solely to those drawling, sharp-eyed, and saber-tongued young women who had taken the misfit under their protection and used their expertise in things social and cosmetic to turn her into an acceptable debutante. Funny how the competent application of mascara had translated itself into a smidgen of self-confidence, how the mastering of a graceful dance step had somehow untied her tongue and allowed her to carry on a social conversation.

She slipped the wires of plain gold hoops into her pierced ears, turning her head to check her appearance. She liked the way they looked, the way the ends of her slightly, purposely tousled hair curled through the hoops, as if her hair had been specifically cut to do so. That was another thing the sorority sisters had taught her, how to appreciate certain things about her own appearance. The greatest gift they had given her was constructed out of the small accomplishments of learning to dance, to apply makeup, to dress well, to function socially. The foundation had taken shape so slowly that she hadn’t noticed it, a brick going into place every so often, but now it was suddenly large enough for her to see it, and she was puzzled by it.