She wasn’t sure he was aware he was slowly working his way through the remnants of their meal. If he ate like this all the time, it was a wonder the guy wasn’t a blimp.
His metabolism was disgusting. Triple bastard.
After a moment of dedicated chewing, he continued. “The only reason the father and older brother survived was because they were still in the city. They hadn’t moved out yet for the season. Something to do with the son going to a boarding school and the term not being finished.” He crumpled the now-empty square of foil, dropped it on his plate, and plucked the last two baby potatoes out of a serving bowl. One at a time, he popped the potatoes into his mouth. “Damn these are good. What’s in them?”
“Parsley, salad dressing, Parmesan cheese.”
“Huh. The last meal I had in the city was microwaveable meatloaf.” He spoke with barely veiled distaste. After licking off his fingers, he looked wistfully into each now-empty bowl and platter. He picked up their plates and carried them into the house. When he came back, he detoured over to the chicken carcass. It was sitting on a cutting board near the barbeque. Peeling back the foil Shelby’d covered it with, he proceeded to methodically strip the bones of any remaining meat. He popped the chicken into his mouth as he worked.
“Next time I’ll cook two,” Shelby teased as she gathered up the serving bowls.
“Don’t,” he blurted out then flashed her one of those beautiful smiles of his. “I’ve eaten way too much as it is.” He continued denuding the chicken bones. “But I never could say no to a roast.”
“Ah. That’ll be my secret weapon next time we negotiate the rent or if Tazer makes a puddle in the front hallway.”
From a shady corner of the deck, the dog lifted his head, thumped his tail a few times, then drifted back into his chicken-mixed-with-kibble-induced lethargy.
“Keep inviting me for dinner and I’ll be putty in your hands.” Grinning, Lee flipped the carcass over and rooted around for more meat.
By the time she’d cleared the table, he was licking his fingers and sighing voluptuously. “If you’re interested,” he said as he gathered up the barbeque tools and carried them inside to the dishwasher, “some of my ancestors left diaries. They’re in the library somewhere. Read them if you like.”
* * * *
The following Wednesday, Shelby looked up from her computer screen when she heard engines approaching. It was just after nine a.m. and way too early for her regular courier. She knew it wasn’t Lee. He was in the city and wouldn’t be back until Friday night. Besides, his truck had a throaty big-engine purr to it. This sounded like mechanical buzzing, loud and whiney. The sound cut out somewhere near the front door. Peering out the window, she saw two kids climb off dirt bikes. Without even bothering to glance around—despite her car parked in front of the garage—they started trying the windows and door.
Obviously not the sharpest knives in the drawer.
Yanking the portable phone out of its cradle, she dialed 911. Tazer scrambled off his bed with an alertness that was reassuring. Just before she opened the front door, she grabbed the baseball bat she’d put in the umbrella stand…just in case. She slammed her palm down on the red alarm button on the security-system panel.
Without thinking about potential risk, Shelby threw open the door.
“Hey, jag off,” she bellowed and starting striking out wildly with the bat. She could barely hear herself over the screaming siren. The kids, two boys, probably in their early teens, skinny and long-limbed yet still shorter than her, jumped away from the windows. She couldn’t get a good look at them because they were wearing helmets, but their visors were up so she could see the shock in their eyes.
Tazer ran out the door beside her, growled impressively, and exposed every one of his big, shiny teeth. Despite the noise, he stuck to her side.
“Two kids trying to break into my house.” She was screaming into the phone and probably rupturing some poor dispatcher’s eardrums. “Yeah you better run,” she added, bellowing at the boys who were now racing for their bikes. “I see you. I know you,” she added for effect. Still running and brandishing her bat, she started swinging when they slowed long enough to punch back their kickstands. They didn’t even pause to start their bikes. Instead, they ran alongside them, looking over their shoulders like they were judging the distance between them and the crazy woman with the bat and big dog.
Shelby kept screaming and flailing the bat over her head.
Prudently, she pulled up just enough to give them space to jump on their bikes, kick-start them to life, and hightail it back down the driveway. The last thing she hoped they saw through their side mirrors was a swinging bat and Tazer’s teeth.
She took a breath, made herself calm down, and lifted the handset to her ear. “Sorry for shouting,” she said and took another breath. “It’s my first break-in and I got a little excited.”
The dispatcher coaxed the particulars out of her. Shelby couldn’t give them license numbers because the dust they’d kicked up had obscured them. She was able to describe the bikes. One was blue, the other yellow.
Honestly, who rides a bright yellow bike to a break-in?
The blue one had a big scratch on the fuel tank and a Redwings decal on the front wheel guard. While the memory was fresh, she told the dispatcher how tall they were—both shorter than her five six—and what they’d been wearing. Jeans and T-shirts weren’t exactly unique, but the dispatcher assured her it was better than nothing.
By the time the local police arrived to take a report, she had half a pot of tea in her to steady her nerves and had written down everything she could remember. Tazer stuck to her like glue and even growled at the police when they arrived.
Shelby had a sneaking suspicion her dog would have stuck with her even without the treats and hugs she kept showering on him.
* * * *
“You did what?”
She yanked the headset away from her ear when Lee started shouting.
“Don’t you ever, ever do anything that stupid again. You hear me?”
Instead of ripping him a new one for acting like he was her father, Shelby bit her tongue. In hindsight, he was probably right.
“Next time, just hit the alarm button and send the damn dog out. You go hide in an upstairs closet or something.”
“Or something,” Shelby repeated evenly. Despite that, she heard the inappropriate amusement in her voice.
Lee must have heard it, too, because when he spoke again, he’d ramped his anger back. In the background, she could hear office sounds…people talking, a phone ringing, a cabinet shutting.
“We’ll talk about it this weekend,” he said. He sounded annoyingly calm now, but she didn’t mind. “I’ll try and get off early Friday. There have to be some perks to being the boss’s son, right?”
* * * *
That afternoon, Shelby was reconciling the year-ends for a specialty chocolate manufacturer. This was a new customer, and she felt no shame when she worked harder on this account than necessary. She’d seen some of their gift baskets online and was hoping for something decadent come Christmas.
She looked up from her keyboard when she heard laughter. It was quiet, childlike, and seemed to be coming from a distance. The sound of the dirt bikes had sent her into a defensive frenzy. This sound calmed her in a weird, nutso way.
It didn’t sound like Raleigh, although the instinctive wow, this can’t be right vibe it gave her was the same. He hadn’t been around for days, but she was used to his flighty ways. Besides, this voice definitely wasn’t his.
The laughter faded. Then, a little while later, she heard skipping…light, rhythmic steps. They were clipped though, like someone small was wearing hard-soled shoes on the wood floors in the foyer. Lying on his dog bed in the corner of the room, Tazer sighed happily and rolled so his belly was exposed. She wasn’t sure he was awake.
Shelby felt her jaw drop when she saw the impression of two small hands moving over his fur. With his tongue h
anging out, Tazer angled his body for maximum tummy exposure…something he was very good at. Patches of his fur alternately flatted and fluffed as phantom hands rubbed his chest and combed through the lush ruff on his shoulders.
She inhaled sharply when the scent of fresh air and flowers reached her. After awhile, the rustling of Tazer’s fur stopped. He grunted, lifted his head, looked around, grunted again, and relaxed visibly back into sleep. When the scent faded, Shelby said, “Hello, Devonna.” Completely convinced she was going insane, she shook her head and returned to work. Even though she felt no malice around her and definitely didn’t feel threatened, she should be screaming and high-tailing it back to Detroit. Isn’t that what the sane people did when they ran into ghosts? Instead, her head was calmly doing the process and accept thing.
Huh. Weird house or what?
“Hello, Shelby.”
The voice was quiet and small. The word Shelby had been spoken without enunciation, the way a child whose palate hadn’t hardened fully might say it.
Shelby’s head shot up, and then, against all reason, she grinned. “Tazer likes you. He doesn’t like people right away.”
“That’s because it’s not right away.” Again, small hand-shaped impressions formed on the dog’s fur. He sneezed, angled his foreleg to make room for the phantom petting, then resumed snoring lightly. “We met when he first got here. I like dogs. And he likes me.”
“I can see that.” Despite the absurdity of it all, Shelby smiled. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.” Devonna’s sweet scent intensified for an instant, and her voice got a little louder. More…corporeal.
“Why doesn’t your father see you? You do know he’s here, don’t you?”
The thick ruff of fur around Tazer’s neck shifted, stilled, then moved again, rising and falling in gentle waves as if small, careful fingers were running through it. “He’s very sad. I remind him of that.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He thinks he killed Mama and me. He didn’t,” the soft voice added with quick surety. Tazer’s ear began to sway back and forth, like it did whenever Shelby rubbed it with her knuckle. The big shepherd mix scrambled to his feet, cocked his head, and stared at an empty spot in front of him. He spronked in an obvious invitation to play as the sound of light footsteps led him into the hallway. For awhile, she heard him racing around the first floor, the sound of a ball being bounced, and a squeak from one of his rubber toys.
Some time after that, Shelby heard a child’s laughter and the sound of feet skipping away. When the toys fell silent, Tazer whined and, looking dejected, wandered back into her office where he dropped onto his bed with a plaintive sigh.
* * * *
Early Friday morning, Shelby was updating a client’s expenditure file when movement caught her eye. Raleigh was sitting on one of the lush, leather sofas, thumbing through the old diary Shelby had left on a side table.
“You’re reading these?” he asked without looking up.
“Lee suggested it.”
Okay. How nuts was it to be sitting in your office, entering gas receipts on a spreadsheet, talking to a dead guy?
“I hope you don’t mind,” she added.
“Of course not. I’m dead. What happened, happened.” He put the diary down and looked around the room. “It’s fitting you’ve claimed this room. This was the ladies’ parlor.” He pointed. “The large one across the hall was the main parlor in my time.”
He leaned forward and focused on her. “Why don’t you marry?” he asked without censure. “Find a man to take care of you?”
She felt her mouth turn up in a wry smile. “Because I like being independent. I like earning my own money so I don’t have to ask some man for a clothing allowance.”
“Hmmph. It worked in my day.” Now he sounded disgruntled. “Women knew their place, kept to it, and everyone was happy.”
“Not the women.”
“Oh all right,” he snapped testily. “Perhaps there was some discontent.”
“Discontent? How can you think everyone was happy when the only people able to decide for themselves were the few men at the top of the food chain?”
“Speaking as a man who was on top, I did like it. Things were predictable. Comfortable.” He leaned back with an air of smugness, tugged on the sleeves of his tailored suit jacket, and smoothed an imaginary crease on his precisely ironed trousers. The suit and tie looked like they were post–World War II. His face looked older than it usually did…more like the painting. Maybe even older than that. Perhaps ghosts who’d been around awhile before they died could drift around in the seasons of their lives.
Shelby sighed. “This is obviously a fruitless argument.” She gave him a wry smile. “You’ll never learn to see things my way, and I definitely don’t want to push the women’s movement back a hundred years.”
“Agreed.” He stood, walked over to her desk, took hold of her hand, and turned it over so he could kiss the inside of her wrist. “Anyway, I just dropped in to tell you you’re looking particularly beautiful today, my dear.”
Knowing Lee would be arriving after lunch, she’d chosen her outfit with care and had even put on a little makeup. She’d told herself she was doing it for herself, but even she didn’t believe that lie.
Raleigh kissed her mouth, nuzzled her temple, and faded away.
“Hmmph. Ghosts,” she muttered to herself, took her monitor off screen-saver, and turned over the next gas receipt in the pile.
That night, Shelby stretched out in the master bathroom’s decadent tub. With bubbles dewing her shoulders and a glass of wine beside her, she relaxed as the jets swirled warmed air and water around her body. A J. R. Ward audio book was playing on her ministereo, and Shelby was getting into Jim Heron’s angelic hunkiness. For some reason, something about the character reminded her of Lee. Maybe it was the hair?
“No way that man’s ever getting rid of me,” she said to the walls. “Not unless I get to keep the tub.” Shelby grinned and dropped her head back. Lee had arrived around two. He’d picked up Wednesday’s argument about ten seconds after he stepped out of his truck.
“I appreciate how conscientious you are, but the phone and security system are here for a reason.” Wearing khaki pants and an Oxford shirt open at the neck, he’d looked disgustingly handsome…especially when he’d raked his fingers through his short, dark hair. “The plan isn’t working.”
“What plan?” She led him inside, gave Tazer a moment to sniff him in a semi-warm greeting, then headed for the kitchen.
Lee’d followed without asking. “The plan where word gets around somebody’s living out here. That should have stopped those nuisance break-ins.”
She held up a pitcher of iced tea in one hand, a bottle of beer in the other. He pointed to the beer.
“They were kids. Tazer and I scared the hell out of them. They won’t be back.” Retrieving two glasses, she poured two beers then sat at the island beside Lee.
He drank about a third of his without pause, set the glass down with more force than necessary, then spun on his stool to glare at her. “And what about the next time, huh? What if it’s not kids next time? What if you…if you get hurt.”
She took a breath, ramping back her annoyance when emotion broke up his rant. “We’ll compromise. I’ll stay here.”
“Where the hell is the compromise in that?”
She held up her forefinger. “If, if more burglars show up, I’ll call the police, trigger the alarm, and sneak out the back door.”
Lee’s jaw flexed. “Okay.” He agreed but didn’t sound happy about it. “But only if you keep the damn dog with you. And if the burglars get too close, loose the dog on them and run in the other direction.” When he looked down at the dog in question, who was currently sitting with his head cocked to one side, Tazer walked over to him. The dog tapped Lee’s foot with his massive paw until Lee cupped Tazer’s ear and rubbed it. Sliding forward on his stool, Lee laid his other hand around the
back of Shelby’s neck and leaned his forehead against hers. “Don’t take any chances and don’t get hurt, okay? I’d go crazy if I found out I’d left you out here alone and you got hurt.”
Sighing, Shelby ran a soapy hand over her arm and leaned against the sloped rim of the tub. She’d spent the day with Lee. He’d taught her how to ride a Jet Ski, and they’d raced around on the lake. They’d gone to the local marina for gas and ice cream. Charming and funny, Lee was terrific to hang out with, but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking he was more into keeping an eye on her than being with her.
It was probably better that way. She was, after all, having sex with his dead ancestor. How screwed up was that? Not for the first time, Shelby was glad she hadn’t talked to Raleigh about the attempted break-in. He simply hadn’t been around at the time and seemed unaware it had happened. That was definitely a good thing. Talking to a twenty-first-century man about it had been bad enough. She could not imagine what it would be like if a man who’d come of age when Queen Victoria was still alive found out she’d asserted herself and kicked butt.
Fortunately, Lee had backed off when she’d offered to cook him dinner. After that, he’d been happy, charming, and attentive. With methodical and undisguised pleasure, he’d worked his way through a platter of honey-garlic ribs, fresh coleslaw, two servings of baked beans, and three cobs of corn. Dessert—strawberries on cake shells with drizzled chocolate—had disappeared just as fast. Cleaning up took awhile because his overstuffed self moved slower than usual. Finally, he’d taken her hand, led her into the family room, popped a movie into the Blu-Ray player, put his arm around her shoulder, and sat without complaint through a Sandra Bullock film.
Sitting up in the tub, Shelby used the remote to switch to the next disk of the audio book. Her ministereo was sitting across the room on the counter, and when she glanced at it, there was Raleigh.
“This was my wife’s bathing chamber.” He spoke casually, but his smile was full of sinful promise. As he walked toward her, he slid his shirt off his shoulders and undid the buttons on his linen slacks. “God bless her soul. She loved a long soak, too.” The pants slid down those lean hips Shelby was now so familiar with. His underwear was boxy and buttoned. She managed not to giggle at how silly they looked.
Ghostly Seduction (Siren Publishing Ménage and More) Page 6