The jerk.
A long while later, she finished up her notes and settled back to wait for him to finish his genealogy work. She tried to keep her eyes open, but she’d had such a long day and, despite the anger making her nerves pulse, exhaustion finally won out.
She wasn’t aware of anything after her eyes closed, except the feel of strong, muscular arms sliding around her, lifting her. Then the mattress met her back and she snuggled into the sheets.
“Sleep well, Rouquin” followed her into the consuming darkness.
“It’s all right.” Her sweet voice echoed through Val’s head and he remembered the feel of her hand. For those few moments, as she’d said the words, touched him, it had been all right.
Just a few words, the slight pressure of her fingers, and he’d felt a blessed moment’s peace from the questions that had nagged him for a century and a half.
Madness!
He should feel anything but peace in her presence. A virgin. How easy it would be to repeat the tragic past and forfeit an eternity of peace.
Too easy, he thought, staring down at her as she slept. The conscious woman avoided direct eye contact and hid behind her ugly, baggy clothes, but asleep her defenses were down. She turned this way, arched that way, parted her lips enough to send a pulsing ache straight to his groin.
He wanted her. Despite who she was. Because of it.
No. He wouldn’t take her to bed and doom his soul to an eternity of restless wandering, for that’s what waited for him if he bedded Veronica Parrish before he’d answered the question that haunted his soul.
Val learned from his mistakes, and this time he was determined to find peace. Soon. If only his damned body didn’t demand its own peace.
A piece of her.
Hell, all of her. Riding him, pulsing around him, drawing him deep, deep, deeper—
No!
Where the man was weak, the spirit would stand strong. He would simply combine a few lessons and get his tutoring over with as quickly as possible, and send sweet Veronica off to try out her newfound education on some unsuspecting man.
He would do it, despite how much the idea bothered him. Despite the all-important fact that for the first time in over a century and a half, Valentine Tremaine couldn’t remember even one of the numerous women he’d bedded.
He knew only one name now. The name of the woman he wanted to bed. The first woman he’d ever met who was as intelligent as she was desirable, who could cut him to the quick with her tongue and turn around and melt him with a single, sympathetic glance.
The woman now sound asleep in his bed.
Norman watched as the lights clicked off in the second-floor apartment. He jotted down the time, popped his notebook into the glove compartment, and gunned the engine of the T-Bird. Damn, but the woman kept late hours, even for a student.
He stiffed a yawn and wiped at his tired eyes. The hours were killing him. His gaze strayed to the ax sitting on the seat next to him. Soon, he told himself. But first he had to keep this up a little while longer, until he knew every move Veronica Parrish made. Knowing her routine was the key to success, and Norman came from a long line of successful people. His mother was Cynthia Terribone, a city councilwoman, and his father was John Terribone, owner of the biggest crawfish restaurant in Acadiana.
He felt a pang of regret for what he was doing. No sane, responsible son of two well-respected community members should be racing around in the middle of the night, contemplating what he was contemplating. Hell, he’d thought it was crazy when the doc had first made the suggestion.
“You have to let your aggression out, Norman. Keeping your feelings, your anger and disappointment and jealousy, bottled up will only make your condition all the more serious. To heal, you must face the source of your problem.”
Norman had chuckled, just the way he’d done when Norma Renee had suggested they visit the doc in the first place. After all, he didn’t have a “problem.” Not just no, but hell no.
He did have a problem. Admitting that was the first step in fixing it, or so the doc had said, and so after a few visits, Norman had come around and finally admitted it to himself. It had been the same with the aggression venting. The more he’d thought about it, the more he realized the doc might be on to something.
Just sitting out in his car with the ax helped him feel better. Thinking about what he was going to do with the ax … well, that actually made him smile. Not that Norman had ever been a violent person. Hey, he was opposed to the death penalty as much as the next God-fearing Republican.
But a guy had to do what a guy had to do, and this acting-out thing might be just what he needed to relieve his stress.
That’s what it all boiled down to. Stress. No faulty wiring or missing parts. Doc had reassured him that on day one.
“Pick an object and act out your aggression.” The picking had been the easy part after what had happened. It was the getting to the object that posed the biggest challenge.
Big, but not impossible. Where there was a will…, as the saying went, and Norman was determined. Desperate.
That’s what his sort of problem did to a guy. It dug down deep in his bones and made him do things he wouldn’t normally consider. Like stalking a woman, carrying an ax in his car, and planning some serious damage once he got close enough.
But a guy had to do what a guy had to do….
“Like this?” Wanda finished the chemistry equation and turned hopeful eyes on Danny.
“You’re getting pretty good at this.”
“Thanks to you.” She yawned. “I think I’ve had enough for one night.”
“One more,” he urged, stifling his own yawn. He needed sleep, despite his double dose of Excite and Energize that morning. But even more, he needed Wanda. “Just to be sure.”
She blew out a deep breath and went to work on another equation. Her long blonde hair fell forward, brushing his arm, and he closed his eyes, relishing the soft feel.
He took a deep breath. The scent of peaches mingled with her favorite perfume filled his nostrils. She chose that moment to brush her hair back from her face. Golden strands swept his skin, stroking, caressing. His chest tightened as he took another deep breath. And another.
An image slid into his mind. Wanda wearing nothing but a come-hither smile and all that long, golden hair.
With a determined look, she walks over to him, unfastens his jeans, and straddles the monstrous erection that bursts free. Man-o-man.
A sigh trembles from her lips as she slides down, down, down until he thinks he will die. She’s so warm and wet—
“Did you say something?” Her soft voice pushed into his thoughts and his eyes popped open.
“I, uh, said I need to take my dog to the, um, vet. Yeah, the vet.” Real smooth, Slick.
“I didn’t know you had a dog.”
“Uh, yeah and he’s, um, really sick right now. Summer flu.”
“Dogs get the flu?”
“Um, sure they do.” Did they? Maybe. Probably. “I really should go. The doc’s waiting.” He unfolded himself from the chair, his book bag carefully concealing his lap.
“But it’s after two in the morning.”
“He’s an all-night vet. Emergencies, you know. Well, see ya.” He beat a fast exit from the dorm room before Wanda could notice that lies weren’t the only thing he was spouting.
He was this close to exploding right there in his pants and showing her he had more, much more, on his mind than chemistry.
Would that be so bad? Maybe then you’d stop acting like a pimply faced teenager and tell the lady what you want.
But it went beyond what he wanted. Wanda was the one thing he needed, and the need clouded his usual cool, calm, 4.0 thinking. Made him ramble on about all-night vets and sent him straight home to an ice-cold shower and a restless night of hot, wet dreams.
Love sucked.
Literally, he thought when he woke from one dream, in particular, of Wanda doing more with her sweet, pea
chy lips than just smiling at him.
Fantasies. That’s all they were, but fantasies were better than nothing, and that was what Danny knew he’d be left with if he bared his soul and laid out his feelings for Wanda.
She would laugh and tell him he was dreaming.
She would laugh some more and tell him he was pathetic.
Or worse, she would smile that beautiful smile and tell him she was sorry, she just didn’t see him as anything more than a study buddy.
The big kiss-off.
No, the fantasies were better. No crash. No burn.
If only they were enough.
Chapter Nine
Between school and work, the next few days passed in a blur, as did most of Ronnie’s weekdays. She caught a quick nap when she arrived home just after ten at night before spending midnight to three a.m. with Val, learning the ropes of the sexually active.
She’d put off trying any of her newly learned techniques on some unsuspecting someone, however. Not because of Val’s Fatal Attraction warning, but because she was too tired and too busy, even more so since she was researching the life and times of Claire Wilbur for the resident ghost.
Her search started with several phone calls regarding certain documents that might help in her search. First she called the Clerk of Courts for the Lafayette area, only to find out she needed to call Vital Statistics in New Orleans, to find out she needed to contact the Louisiana State Archives in Baton Rouge. By Friday, she’d found out that the archives housed all birth and death certificates, marriage and divorce decrees, census reports, and other relevant records for Orleans Parish—present-day New Orleans and the surrounding area—from 1790 until the mid 1900s.
She could request a copy of Claire’s birth certificate by mail and wait the required three to four weeks, or she could take a half day off from the library on Saturday, and drive over to Baton Rouge first thing in the morning.
Driving the two hours seemed the better plan, particularly since she didn’t know what she might encounter. What if Claire didn’t have a death certificate on record? What if it listed a surviving child? If Ronnie were there in person, she could research more information, depending on her findings.
Her mind made up, she finished her shift on Friday evening and collapsed into bed as soon as she walked into her apartment. As usual, Val woke her at midnight for their lesson.
“Not tonight.” She buried her head beneath the pillow. “I have a headache.”
“Then I shall mix you up some tea.” He started for the kitchen.
“Make it coffee,” she called after him. “Black, and I’ll be running circles around you in a few minutes.”
At the first taste of the thick, bitter brew, she grimaced. “It’s horrible.”
“Let me put some sugar in it.”
“No, I need horrible.” She held her nose and took a huge gulp of the god-awful stuff. Caffeine torpedoed to her brain and by the fourth cup, she could actually open her eyes without the room blurring. “Much better. So what’s on the agenda tonight?”
“Tonight we move on to kissing.”
Finally. She closed her eyes and puckered. “I’m ready.”
“Not quite.” He thrust a notebook and pen into her hands. “Now you’re ready, chérie.”
“I thought we were kissing.”
“We’re writing about kissing.” He started to pace. “Now, there are several types of kisses. The closed-mouth peck, the butterfly kiss, the nibbling kiss, the…” He stopped pacing to stare at her. “You’re not writing this down.”
“Actually, I was hoping for a little demonstration.” More like praying. Fervently, desperately praying. Her gaze hooked on his mouth, on the slightly prominent thrust of his bottom lip. He had great lips for a man. Sensuous lips. “I work better with actual hands-on, er, make that lips-on demonstrations.”
The idea obviously didn’t sit too well, because he seemed to think about it, then frowned and glared. He started to pace and dictate various kisses, hardly sparing her another glance.
Just her luck, she thought as she climbed into bed much later, after Val had faded and disappeared into whatever spot he occupied, leaving Ronnie with a major case of desperate hormones and only her dreams for company. A fat lot of good they did her. She kept having the same one, and no matter how pleasant, she was ready for more. For him.
Geez, she’d finally decided to indulge herself, only to find out her intended had a cast iron-resolve. A ghost with will power and a No Virgin policy.
And Val thought he had rotten luck?
Okay, so Val’s luck was definitely worse than Ronnie’s.
She admitted that as she stood in the basement of the Louisiana State Archives building in Baton Rouge and stared at the death certificate on the microfiche screen. After doing her research on Claire, she’d decided to look up a few records on Val. Namely, his death certificate.
Murdered. Val had been murdered.
She felt as if someone had landed a sucker punch to her gut.
A voice chimed in, reminding her that this had happened one hundred and fifty years ago. Practically ancient history. Everyone had to die sometime, and murder was an everyday occurrence. The newspapers were filled with it.
The fact did little to console her. This wasn’t some unknown someone she’d read about in the newspaper. This was Val.
A ghost, she reassured herself. Just a ghost.
But one hundred and fifty years ago he’d been real. A living, breathing man. Until…
“Murdered. You were murdered.” She walked into the apartment late that night, after eight hours of shelving books, and speared him with an accusing gaze.
He sat in her recliner, long legs stretched out in front of him, booted ankles crossed. He looked so handsome, so vital, so real….
She shook away the disturbing thought and focused on the anger roiling inside her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The television set flipped off as he shifted his attention from the screen to her. “You never asked, chérie.”
She hadn’t. From the moment Val had first appeared to her, she hadn’t asked a thing about his past, about the man he’d been before … before. He’d started out as a dream, progressed to a ghost, and Ronnie had been determined to stop things there.
The more she knew of him, the more real he seemed.
The more distracting and all the more dangerous.
Don’t ask, she told herself. Just leave things alone, keep your mouth shut, and stick to your own problems. School, work, and the future. “What happened?” Was that her sad, concerned voice? Geez, it was. Worse, it mirrored what she felt inside.
“Do you really want to know?”
“No, but I need to know.”
He stared at her long and hard before unfolding from the chair and pacing to the French doors. The handle clicked, glass swung aside, and Val stared at the street below.
“It was a night just like this one. Clear. Hot. I was alone in my bed at Heaven’s Gate.”
“Heaven’s Gate?”
“My plantation. At one time, it was the biggest in all of Louisiana. It’s gone now, burned to the ground before the turn of the century. That bit of information was listed on the plaque naming my bed and its owner at the museum where I spent several years.” He closed his eyes. “It’s been so long, but I still remember Heaven’s Gate as if I’d just ridden across the grounds or sat down to dinner in the dining room. In my mind it’s still so clear. So beautiful.”
“I’m sure it was.”
A sad smile curved his lips. “My father put his life’s blood into that house. He came over from France in 1800, to make his fortune and keep my mother in the manner she was accustomed to. She was French royalty and she’d gone against her family, fled her home, to marry my father. He’d been a scholar, from a titled family, highly educated, and financially secure, but a far cry from royalty. My maman made him feel like a king and so he wanted to build a castle, and he did. The main house was beautiful, with twenty be
drooms and a grand ballroom.”
Ronnie closed her eyes, and in her mind she could picture what it might have looked like. Rich brocade drapes, marble fireplaces, intricate friezework.
“Heaven’s Gate seemed so huge and empty after my parents passed on and my sisters married,” he went on. “I became master of a thriving plantation. I grew tobacco aplenty, but that was the only thing these hands could cultivate.” He shook his head as if trying to push away something better forgotten.
Ronnie couldn’t say she blamed him. He’d been murdered in his bed, according to the death certificate. This bed. “Oh my God,” she blurted out as the realization hit her. “I’ve been sleeping in a dead person’s bed!” She rubbed her arms, eager to dispel a sudden feeling of complete paranoia.
Val flashed her a grin. “A ghost’s bed, and no need to worry, I didn’t bleed on the sheets. I fell to the floor. My hand was the only contact with the bed when Death claimed my body.”
She blew out a deep breath and tried to calm her pounding heart. “That’s comforting.”
“For you, maybe, but I’m dead, remember?”
If only she could. The trouble was, Ronnie kept forgetting that all-important fact. She kept seeing a man standing on her balcony, his tall, powerful form framed by the open French doors. She heard a man’s voice describing a hot, humid night long, long ago when he’d been awakened in the wee morning hours and ambushed by a group of angry citizens led by the town minister.
“So who actually shot you?”
“The preacher himself.”
“The preacher murdered you?”
“He was a father before he was a preacher. I’d deflowered his virginal daughter and left her with child, or so he and the rest of the town thought.”
“You never told me why they thought such a thing.”
“She made the accusation. She said we spent one night together, the night of the town’s annual harvest festival. There was a grand ball at a nearby plantation, where I supposedly swept her off her feet and into bed.” He shook his head. “I remember the ball-room being stuffed with people. Women, in particular. I remember many faces, but not hers.”
In the Midnight Hour Page 12