carefully through ankle-deep fallen leaves and stepping over rotted logs, she hurried after the dog and came upon a trail.
“What a clever fellow you are.” Sassy crouched to pet the Dalmatian. He danced out of reach. Tilting her head, she considered him. “Why so shy?”
The dog wagged his tail and pranced into the underbrush.
“Hey, come back,” Sassy cried in alarm. “Don’t leave me.”
The slim blond man appeared without warning. His lavender eyes shone in the gloom. Sassy yelped and sat down hard on the trail, legs sprawled in a most unladylike fashion.
“Good gracious grandma,” she said. “Don’t do that. You scared the stuffing out of me.”
The man threw his head back and laughed. “You sound like your mother.”
Sassy gaped at him, her thoughts spinning backward. It was a rainy afternoon and she was four years old. She was playing dress-up in her mother’s closet. Behind a pile of shoes, she’d unearthed a wooden box. Inside were a handkerchief, the papery thin petals of a pressed wildflower, and a photograph of her mother with a man. A lean, handsome man Sassy did not recognize; a man who was not her stepfather. In the photograph, the stranger had his head thrown back. He was laughing at something. Her mother’s adoring gaze was fixed on him. She looked so lovely, so young, happy, and carefree that Sassy almost didn’t recognize her.
Who was this man and why did Mama never smile at her or Daddy Joel like that? Sassy had wondered. Donning a pair of her mother’s satin evening pumps, Sassy clomped downstairs in search of answers. She’d found her mother seated at her mahogany desk in the library addressing invitations to the upcoming New Year’s gala. Eleanor’s short dark hair was perfectly coiffed, her trim figure displayed to advantage in a pair of black wool slacks and a cream-colored cashmere sweater.
Sassy had toddled across the Persian rug in the too-big heels. “Mama, who’s this man?”
Mama plucked the snapshot from Sassy’s fat little fingers. “Where did you get this, Sarah Elizabeth?”
Sarah Elizabeth? Sassy quailed. She was Mama’s Sassy Bug. Mama never called her Sarah Elizabeth unless she was in trouble. She regarded her mother anxiously. Were those tears in Mama’s eyes? She was a bad girl to make her mama cry.
“Upstairs in the closet.” Sassy swallowed the lump in her throat. “W-who is he?”
“Your father.”
Mama’s voice was cool and distant, and her face looked stiff and funny. Her expression frightened Sassy.
Opening a little compartment in the desk, Mama placed the photograph inside and shut the drawer with a snap.
“Play somewhere else.” Mama returned her attention to her invitations. “Mother is busy.”
Sassy did not ask her mother about The Man again. Talking about The Man made Mama sad. Sassy hated when Mama was sad.
Still, Sassy had learned a few things about her father through the years. His name was William Blake Peterson Jr., and he was a concert pianist.
Or, rather, he had been; Junior Peterson was dead. He’d died before Sassy was born.
Which meant Sassy was talking to a ghost.
Chapter Two
Grim materialized in the shelter of the woods and looked back. His fingers sought and found the chain he wore around his neck; all that remained of his brother Gryff. Absently, he traced the smooth edges of the medallion, his gaze on the female on the bridge. She was wet and bedraggled, a delicious little package wrapped in damp green silk. A curious longing swept over him, and he had the sudden urge to retrace his steps and peel the clinging dress from her body. Unwrap her like some long-awaited, much anticipated treat.
The impulse unsettled him. She unsettled him, had done so from the instant he’d plucked her from the water. The compulsion had grown with each passing moment in her presence, culminating in his unwise and precipitous departure.
She had seen him disappear. He was seldom careless. Her memory would have to be adjusted.
Eyes wide, hair streaming across her shoulders and breasts in a sleek, wet curtain, she stared over the edge of the bridge in confusion. An uneasy sensation bloomed in Grim’s chest, an aberrant response he found puzzling.
By the gods, what was it about the chit that affected him? She was pretty enough, he supposed, though not a true beauty. Her face was more heart shaped than oval, her jaw too square; mouth a trifle too wide. She was disheveled, her pale cheeks smeared with the substance she’d used to darken her lashes. Any number of thralls in the House of Perpetual Bliss