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He would slip ashore three hours before midnight on the night of the American assault.
I will spirit my Catherine to safety before the fighting begins, he wrote in his journal. She will be safe and no one will be the wiser...
* * *
It was the final entry he'd made.
Kathryn flipped through the remaining pages, but they were blank.
She shut the book and lay it aside. The hours had flown by while she sat reading. She was startled to see that the fiery sun was beginning to dip towards the sea.
A breeze sprang up, carrying with it a chill that made her shudder.
"Oh Matthew," Kathryn whispered, "what happened to you?"
"You know what happened to me, Catherine," a deep voice snarled.
She shot to her feet and spun around. Matthew was standing just behind her, legs slightly apart, hands fisted on his hips. His face looked as if it had been chiseled from stone. He looked enraged and intimidating, and Kathryn knew that it was time for her to stop denying the truth.
Matthew McDowell was not an intruder. He was a ghost.
For one racing beat of her heart, Kathryn almost laughed at the insanity of it. But then she looked into those cold green eyes and her throat choked with fear.
"You're wrong," she said. "I have no idea what happened to you."
He laughed, as if she'd made some terrible jokes.
"Such sweet protestations of innocence, Cat. put then, I should have expected no less."
"Matthew, listen to me! I don't know what happened to you. I'm not your Catherine."
He started towards her, his eyes burning into hers.
"That, at least, is true. You never were my Catherine, though you swore that you were."
"No! I never was. I..."
God, oh God, he was going to kill her! She wanted to run but where was there to run to, with the sea at her back and the cliffs rising ahead?
He was on her before she could do anything, his hands clamping down hard on her shoulders as he dragged her to him. She had freed herself from his grip by kicking him the last time but there was no chance of that now. He had her tightly pinned against his hard, unyielding body.
His fingers wrapped around her throat.
"Bitch," he said, grinding the word out through his clenched teeth.
"No!" Kathryn forced her clasped hands up between his wrists. "Please," she gasped, "Matthew! You're making a terrible mistake!"
His thumbs pressed down into the hollow of her throat. She gasped for air, struggling fiercely against him, but he was far too strong.
The world started to grey before her eyes and a roaring began in her ears.
Was it the sound of the sea, or the sound of her approaching death?
"Matthew," she whispered, and then there was only darkness.
Chapter 11
It was one thing to kill a man in the heat of battle.
