The house was perched on a cliff high above the western shore of Lake Huron. All Lee had said when she’d come out a few weeks ago to check out the place was that it had been in his family for a while.
“He actually bought a steamship line so he could reroute a boat to bring workers and materials out this far.” Lee dropped the peat moss beside the compost, stretched his back, and ran a hand across his forehead. Despite the heat and the harsh, August sunshine, his precisely cut brown hair looked sexy as ever, as did those warm, chocolate eyes of his.
Shaking herself mentally—again—Shelby tried to concentrate on what he was saying and not ogle those fine shoulders moving beneath that fitted T-shirt.
Lee continued. “After the house was built, that same steamship line brought his family out here each summer, brought supplies, mail, and visitors. That steamship line earned him his second fortune.”
“How?” Tipping her head to one side, Shelby looked at the trays of flowers. She decided the white ones would make a nice backdrop for the red and repositioned the trays accordingly.
“Times were changing. He saw there was more money to be made in railways than steamships. He sold the steamship line, made a killing, and invested the money in rail stock.
“I’m going to the garden shed for some tools. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Nodding, Shelby headed back to the truck. She swept out the dirt she could reach and eyed the remaining flowers with suspicion. The only thing she knew about them was they were doomed to die at her hands…kind of like an alien autopsy. By the time she turned back to the front of the house, Lee was there with a wheelbarrow piled with rakes, shovels, and other gardening implements she didn’t have a clue what to do with.
He’d driven her into town this morning. At the garden center, he’d introduced her to the owner then left her in the capable hands of the staff to pick out the plants she’d need. The staff had given her some tips and most importantly, she now realized, a number to call if she needed advice.
“I’m so out of my skill set here,” she muttered to herself.
Lee handed her a pair of the gardening gloves he’d picked up for her when he’d paid for the supplies.
“So when I kill all this stuff off,” she said without a trace of doubt in her mind, “you’ll actually pay to replace it?” She looked down at the trays of flowers and felt her brow furrowed. Hadn’t she decided to put the white flowers in the back row? The trays were positioned so the red ones were in back. Must have thought about moving them but didn’t actually do it.
“Yes. But you won’t kill them.”
His confidence in her, although definitely misplaced, made her feel better.
“Call the nursery if you need help. They’re also going to talk you through the steps to get the greenhouse back up and running.”
“Ah, yes. The greenhouse,” she said with a sense of doom. The greenhouse was as big as her old apartment, intimidating, currently devoid of plant life, and as ornately Victorian as the house it was attached to.
“It’s not as complicated as it looks,” Lee said as he split open a bag of compost and dumped it over the empty strip of flowerbed. Behind that, elegant plants filled the rest of the quarter-circle flanking one side of the front staircase. “My great great-grandmother wanted only one thing out of old Raleigh’s wedding gift in the woods—a greenhouse that would put her Detroit friends to shame.” He glanced up at Shelby. “No pressure though.”
“Yeah. No pressure.”
Chuckling, he continued. “These days though, my father and I…well, Dad mostly…are into organic produce. When I told him I was getting somebody in, he asked if you could get the greenhouse back up and running and supply us with vegetables throughout the winter.”
Shelby blanched. The only vegetables she usually ate came frozen in bags so she could drizzle nuked Cheez Whiz over them.
Lee pressed on. “There’s an automated sprinkler system. I’ll show you how to adjust it. You just have to dump some starter soil in plastic trays, poke seeds into each of the little containers, turn on the heater coils beneath the trays, and let nature do its thing.”
He handed her his pocket knife and had her cut open the second bag of compost.
“Spread this one around the other planting bed.” He watched her with obvious approval. “And don’t worry about the greenhouse. You won’t have to start the seeds until November.”
“In winter? They’ll die for sure.”
“No they won’t.” Lee huffed as he grabbed what looked like a pitchfork, thrust it into one of the beds, and mixed the compost into the soil. “Add a couple shovelfuls of peat moss, a sprinkle of bone marrow, and mix everything together,” he explained as he worked. “Go six or so inches deep.” Leaning her hands on her knees, Shelby watched intently.
“Hey!” she blurted out. Shelby spun around. Lee straightened and gave her a puzzled look.
She rubbed her backside. She’d distinctly felt a hand on her ass. A hand big enough to cover her left cheek and squeeze firmly.
She rubbed her backside again. Of course there was nobody there. With all this bending and lifting, her shorts had probably twisted. Or something. Great. Now Lee was looking at her like she’d grown a second head.
“A bug,” she lied. “Maybe a horsefly. Tried to take a bite out of me.”
“Huh.” His eyebrow rose slowly. “There’s bug juice under the kitchen sink if you need it. Might not be a bad idea with the mosquitoes and all.” He turned back to his digging and turning then handed her the pitchfork. “Now you do the other bed. Mix everything in like I did.” His cell rang, and he excused himself before stepping away to answer it.
Wearing her new gloves, Shelby put her back into turning the soil. Lee was talking to somebody about the tensile strength of steel girders. She reached for the first tray of flowers and froze. The red ones were again behind the white ones. “Fine,” she muttered under her breath and threw her hands in the air. “Have it your way.” She started planting the red geraniums in a neat curve closest to the perennial shrubs in back. “Now I’m talking to ghosts. That’ll teach me to work outside in this heat.”
“Pardon?” Lee said. His brow furrowed as he turned back to her.
“Nothing. Just talking to myself. I probably need to put on a hat and drink more fluids.”
Without saying anything, he stepped over to the truck, came back with a Tigers cap, and dropped it on her head. He looked at her with unguarded approval then disappeared into the house. When he came back, he was carrying two bottles of cold water.
Despite her reserve, Shelby was finding it hard not to fall for this guy’s charm and easy manners. Hell, every woman who met him probably felt the same way.
When the plants were in the ground—that part was easy, and she liked the neat curve of red blooms behind the curve of white—Lee drove his truck around to the greenhouse. There, he unloaded the rest of the supplies.
“You can fill the containers in here,” he said, opening cupboards beneath the long tables hugging the walls. Inside were planters and boxes of different makes and sizes. “Then use the wheelbarrow to transport the containers around the property.”
“I feel like I’m marching them to their wake,” she said as she helped him carry tray after tray of flowers from the truck.
Laughing, Lee batted the brim of her hat and handed her more water.
That week, she and Lee had dinner together three times. He hadn’t gotten around to buying another barbeque for the gardener’s cottage, so he asked to use the one outside the main house. The term barbeque was a bit misleading. The covered patio off what he referred to as the family room held a fully equipped outdoor kitchen. They made pizza in the oven one night, cooked up steak and corn on the grill another, and sautéed shrimp and garlic spinach on the side burners the night before he went back to the city.
While he was at the lake, during the day, they kept to themselves for the most part, working. It didn’t take long for Shelby to get her off
ice organized. None of her clients commented on any break in service during her move. One evening Lee helped her hook up her television to the family room’s audio system. He razzed her about having an old-fashioned, fat television. He’d unapologetically taken his snazzy new flat screen with him when he’d moved into the gardener’s cottage.
The house might be old, but Lee and his family hadn’t skimped on modernizing. In addition to a state-of-the-art security system, the place had Wi-Fi service inside and out, a cell signal booster on a tall antenna outside, satellite, a modern intercom system, and computer-run lighting.
The afternoon he took her to the local diner for lunch, he watched with undisguised approval as she sank her teeth into a homemade hamburger. Despite the surprisingly good salad that came with her lunch, she helped herself to a few of Lee’s hand-cut fries.
“I like a woman who knows how to eat,” he said. “I’ve taken out women who refuse to let a man see them eat a full meal. Always makes me wonder how healthy they are, or if they’re bulimic. Yeessh.” He shuddered then drank down the rest of his iced tea like he was trying to get rid of a bad taste in his mouth. “There’s Nan,” he said suddenly, looking up. “She’s on the historical-society board. You’ll like her.”
Lee stood and waved over a sixty-something woman who’d just walked in the door. “Shelby, this is Nan West. Anything you want to know about the area, this is the woman to ask. Nan, this is Shelby Prentice. She’s taken over the main house. She’s also a very good accountant, so if you know anybody who needs help come tax time…” His voice trailed off meaningfully.
Nan had bright, blue eyes and a firm handshake. She sat down and Lee ordered a lemonade for her and iced tea refills for himself and Shelby. Nan’s hair was long, almost to her waist, white shot through with glossy strands of gunmetal gray.
“Staying out at the Tanner place, hmm? Well it’s about time Lee got himself somebody full time. Run into any ghosts yet?”
Holding a forkful of salad suspended mid air, Shelby stared at the other woman.
“No,” Lee answered for her in a voice that rang with censure. “Ghost stories might bring in tourist revenue, but you and I know there’s no such thing.”
“Scoffer,” Nan huffed and touched his cheek affectionately. “Tanner ghosts only show themselves to women. Everybody knows that.” She asked Shelby if she had any business cards.
By the time Nan left to pick up her take-out order, more locals had dropped by to say hello. Nan had asked after Lee’s father. He was still in the city, playing more golf than working. Lee’s mother was still living in Miami, going to more charity events than shopping.
Shelby had shook more hands and given out more cards than she had in six months.
* * * *
The next day, the courier—almost a daily visitor now—delivered the outdoor plaque Shelby had ordered a few weeks back. Lee must have seen her come around to the gardening shed because when she emerged with a shovel and a mallet, he was standing there.
“What are these for?” he asked with an air of somebody who was used to working around people all day and jonesing for company. He took the tools from her and, walking beside her, carried them up to the house.
“My business sign arrived. Remember I asked about hanging it near the front door?”
“Sure. Want some help?”
The sign was a simple two-foot-wide oval. It was made of black metal, had a few raised curly-cues on the top and edge, and was painted with the words Accounting Services, Shelby Prentice, Certified Financial Manager.
“Hmm. Elegant looking,” Lee said as he picked up the matching, metal post and headed for the front drive. “Where do you want it?”
They picked a spot between the driveway and front flower beds. Lee grabbed the shovel and started digging. When the hole was deep enough, she held the metal rod that had come with the sign and Lee used the mallet to drive it into the ground. The decorative post fit over that. When he went back to the house to pick up the sign, she started backfilling the hole with dirt.
“Brought you one,” he said and handed her a glass tinkling with ice. The cold ginger ale felt good going down. After she’d set the glass aside, she bent over to pick up the shovel and froze.
Somebody was fondling her ass.
Spinning around, she glared at Lee…except he was eight feet away, pulling the last of the protective wrap away from her sign and had his back to her. She tugged her shorts down firmly. If my butt cramps every time I do a little gardening, I need to get off my chair and exercise more.
Wearing a grin, Lee turned back to her. “You should do the honors.” He handed her the sign. Acting like nothing had happened, Shelby smiled right back, took the sign, and hooked it onto the metal clips hanging from the post arm.
Monday morning, Shelby rubbed her cheek against her pillow. Dappled sunlight filtered through her eyelids. Birds were singing up a storm outside the closed windows, and the air-conditioning hummed quietly through the register. Her first lucid thought was she didn’t have to put on a suit and fight her way through traffic to get to work. It made her smile, and she opened her eyes slowly. And froze.
A child, a little girl maybe six or seven years old was standing right beside the bed. She was small and slender. Her shiny, brown hair was cut in a short bob. Bangs, shaped in a V, covered a downy forehead. Shelby caught a whiff of fresh air and flowers. The girl was wearing a pale, linen dress with lush embroidery around the collar and elbow-length cuffs. The dress caught Shelby’s attention. It seemed a little formal with its neatly pressed, straight lines and drop waist. Below the skirt, which ended just below her knees, the girl was wearing a pair of shiny Mary-Jane shoes with straps.
“Have you seen my daddy?”
Shelby inhaled sharply, opened her eyes, and her head shot off the pillow as she awoke for real this time. Completely freaked out, she stood and walked across the bed, looking around frantically before she realized she’d been dreaming.
Wow. That was the weirdest dream she’d ever had. She’d never had one so realistic, she thought as she stepped off the mattress, tugged down her cotton nightshirt, and headed for the bathroom.
By the time she’d showered, toasted a bagel, and headed to her office to start work, she’d stopped looking around corners and under furniture for a little girl who couldn’t possibly be there.
* * * *
The wind came around from the northwest that afternoon, finally breaking up the oppressive heat that had stalled over the area. By bedtime, it was cool enough to turn off the air-conditioning, and, for the first time since she’d been there, Shelby slept with the windows open.
The clock said it was four a.m. when she heard what sounded like rain outside. She jumped out of bed and ran to shut the window. The moon was almost full, making it easy to see that the automated sprinkler system had kicked on. It wasn’t raining. Exhaling with relief, she climbed back into bed and snuggled into the soft sheets and cotton coverlet.
She fell back to sleep almost instantly. Or at least she thought she did. There was a warm, strong body behind hers. He held her tenderly, tightened his arm just enough so her ass spooned into his hips. The whole thing seemed dreamlike, surreal, especially when she opened her eyes and he was suddenly lying on his side in front of her. His eyes were dark and beautiful. His hair was dark as well. Short, it framed his handsome face, the very male cut of his cheek, and a moustache that was long and precisely groomed.
He kissed her. His lips were soft, warm, and his moustache grazed her skin like a thick, silk brush. Leaving her mouth, he kissed her shoulder, the swell of her breast.
Letting herself fall further into the fantasy, Shelby knew she was dreaming. She never went to bed naked, not unless she had company. Somehow she didn’t think she could count the main attraction in an erotic dream as company. His moustache tickled her breast.
“You’re a treasure, Miss Prentice,” her lover said. His voice was deep, with a sensual edge that seemed custom-ordered by her psyc
he. “But where are my manners?” he continued. There was a formality to his speech, a touch of old-worldliness. The sound of it hardened her nipples. Hot damn, she should have moved out here years ago if the fresh air jump-started her imagination like this. “The name is Raleigh Tanner, but you can call me Raleigh.”
“Raleigh, hmm? Well since you’re in my bed and we’re naked,” she said, flexing her hips and letting her thigh graze his prominent and intriguing erection, “I suppose you should call me Shelby.”
“A charming name for an utterly charming woman.” He slid closer, wrapped his arm around her, and rubbed the head of his cock against her belly. Cupping her ass, he squeezed gently.
One of the best things about dreams was a lover’s ability to get straight to the point. Without asking, like he knew exactly what she wanted, Raleigh slid the covers off both of them, rolled her onto her back, eased her legs apart, and lay between them. He kissed her mound like he’d kissed her mouth—soft, warm, and sensually. When he exhaled, his breath made her shiver with pleasure. His tongue traced her nether lips, teased the plump folds, circled her clit, then stroked it gently.
“Your moustache tickles.” Shelby giggled. She combed her fingers through his hair. Hooking her legs over his shoulders, she relaxed and opened herself fully to this dream lover. He began to arouse her with a devout talent that made her arch and gasp.
The tip of his tongue circled her clit and probed the mouth of her sheath. The wet sounds of licking and sucking ramped up her excitement. He returned to her pleasure point, sucked it into his mouth, and flicked it until she twisted and gasped. Long fingers pressed into her, stroked, curved.
Her orgasm came way too fast. None of her boyfriends had been firecrackers in the sack, so she was used to a slower, more tentative loving. Dream Raleigh had her sweaty and shaking in no time. Release pounded through her with a fierceness that left her limp and exhausted.
Ghostly Seduction (Siren Publishing Ménage and More) Page 2