Better Homes and Hauntings

by Molly Harper

  She stared at him, her expression blank.

  “Don’t start,” he warned her. “Lead the way.”

  She led, but every few seconds, she checked over her shoulder to make sure he was still following. Had she always been so unsure of herself? Or was this some sort of by-product of being stalked and then trapped on Spooky Island? Deacon tried to imagine her as a take-charge, ball-busting type, and it turned his stomach. He wouldn’t mind seeing her being more comfortable or even more assertive. But Nina was not made for passive-aggressive snipes or cold stares.

  He could see Nina living a quiet life, sleeping late on Sundays, and taking her dog for walks to her favorite coffee shop, because the dog—Max, he was sure the dog would be named Max—and Nina were just so adorable that the baristas didn’t care if they loitered at an outside table, nursing a latte for two hours.

  OK, when he started naming imaginary dogs, it was time to find something else to think about.

  To his surprise, she didn’t lead him outside but through the kitchen, down the hall, toward the solarium. She pressed a panel button outside the frosted-glass door, which hissed as it opened, revealing an indoor paradise. Somehow, Nina had brought a tranquil, fragrant garden inside the once-decrepit space. The sweet, delicate scent of lemon blossoms covered the green tang of turned earth and new growth. The walls were lined with several levels of slate-gray volcanic rock, building up to a waterfall that gently fed the sunken koi pond taking up nearly a third of the room. The tiled floor was now covered in sea lavender, with stepping stones that created a path through the greenery and across the pond. Meyer lemon trees blossomed in the corners, sending the occasional white and yellow bloom floating across the room. And in the center of the wall was a bright red button labeled “Ninja Death Squad.”

  “Now, I didn’t go full Asian Modern,” she said. “I tried to stay close to the theme of the house, Mediterranean Coastal, while keeping with Catherine’s original intention of bringing a bit of the beach into the house. The koi pond is supposed to help you imagine the ocean.”

  Beyond the white canvas hammock swinging lazily in the corner by the window, the only seating was a double lounge inside an alcove of rock. This was not an entertaining room. This was a retreat, a place where Deacon could hide away. Nina plucked a remote from a side table near the lounge and pushed a few buttons, playing soft flute music. She smiled, almost shy, gesturing around the room with an expectant gesture.

  “I thought we were going outside for fresh air,” he said, teasing her.

  “Technically, the air is fresh,” Nina said. “Anthony helped me set up a special reverse-osmosis ventilation system that circulates outside air into the room while regulating temperature and preventing condensation issues, mold, that sort of thing. The whole room is basically a self-contained ecosystem.”

  “You’re trying to appeal to the science nerd in me, aren’t you?”

  “Shamelessly,” she said, winking at him. “And as one final, utterly brazen ploy to capture your inner mad scientist . . .” Nina punched a few more buttons. “Instead of boring old sprinklers, you get simulated rain showers.”

  Deacon felt the mist before he saw it. He looked up to see the tiny sprayers lining the casement between the ceiling and the windows, blowing out a steady drizzling rain. He chuckled, rubbing his rain-slick fingers together. “Shameless,” he told her. “This is beautiful, Nina. Really, it’s incredible. I can’t believe it’s the same room.”

  “It’s what I do,” she said. “I just pictured what sort of garden Tony Stark would have wanted and went from there.”

  “See, that’s not fair.” He sighed, watching as the tiny droplets clung to her silky red hair, giving it an otherworldly shimmer as she moved. “You can’t just drop comic-book references on me like that and expect me to behave in a professional, rational manner.”

  “I always depend on you to behave in a professional, rational manner,” she retorted, stepping back onto the sea grass. Her sneaker slipped on the greenery, and she almost lost her footing.

  “Whoa!” he exclaimed, snaking his hands under her elbows and keeping her upright. “This is what happens when you walk around in the rain!”

  “Haven’t you ever just walked in the rain before?”

  “I will not dance in the rain with you like some hippie,” he said, laughing. “If you want Burning Man dance circles, go see Dot—”

  She grabbed his face between her palms and kissed him. “Don’t call me a hippie, Whitney.”

  HIS THUMB TRACED the line of her mouth. The rainwater was cool between her lips. Deacon’s slim, elegant hands reached for her; they grasped her upper arms, pulling her close as his lips wandered up her skin.

  Nina relaxed against him, shivering as his hands slid over her damp clothes. His mouth tasted like red licorice and some deep, dark flavor that should be added to everything. Everything.

  “Deac—”

  He took advantage of her opening mouth, sliding his tongue past her lips to play with hers. His long, deft fingers plucked at her plain cotton shirt, tweaking her sensitive nipples through her bra. She moaned softly, dragging her hands through his dark, curly hair. His hands slid to her hips, pulling her against him. She could feel the stiff weight of him pressed against her belly. He gently pushed her back, against the wall, where he could hold her between his thighs and the stones.

  “Is this us?” she whispered against his lips. “Are you kissing me, or is there someone else there?”

  “Please,” he whispered, rocking her against his thigh.

  She groaned, relishing the opportunity to kiss him again. “We shouldn’t,” she said, panting. “Not here.”

  “Why not?” He grinned down at her.

  “Grass stains.” She giggled, leading him to the partially covered lounge. She pushed a few more buttons, locking the door but not shutting off the indoor rain shower.

  The real atmospheric rain was beating out a musical patter on the windowpane as he lowered her to the cushion. She sighed, shimmying out of her wet, uncooperative shorts and tossing the rest of her clothes to the floor. He followed suit, his long, lean limbs twining around her as he rolled her back against the cushion.

  Deacon trailed his lips down her collarbone, between her breasts, ghosting them over her stomach before pressing a light bite to each hip bone. He worked his way back up, teasing her nipples into pale pink peaks.

  “This is us,” Deacon told her, brushing the damp crimson hair back from her face. “Just Deacon and Nina. No one else.”

  She nodded. “Just us.”

  And with that, he pressed inside her, stretching her with a lovely, aching tension that she’d missed in all those months alone. They moved their hips in time, the roll of raindrops spattering against the windowpane providing a pleasant cover for the squeaking frame of the lounge. She smiled against his shoulder, hardly believing her boldness, ending up in bed with her boss on a Tuesday afternoon.

  They continued, unaware of the dark, angry figure outside the wall of windows, watching with clenched fists.

  RELOCATED, SHOWERED, AND curled against Deacon in her own bed, Nina dreamed. She was in the familiar maids’ quarters again. She looked down and saw with relief that she was wearing the distinctive Whitney ring on her finger as she made the bed. She bent over the far corner of the mattress, tucking the sheet tightly. And when she rose up, she felt a large hand slide down the small of her back and give her backside a pinch. She squealed, and the man’s other hand clapped around her mouth, pressing her back against his chest.

  “Well, look at what I found here,” a warm male voice whispered against her ear. “A pretty piece of skirt already bent over the bed.”

  A thrill of fear rippled up her spine as large, warm hands slipped around her hips and pressed her bum against a solid male frame. Teeth closed gently over her earlobe, tugging insistently.

  She sighed as the mouth moved from her ear to her neck. He paused to nibble at the base of her neck, and she turned to face .
. .

  The scene changed, and she was standing on the roof, on the widow’s walk, looking out onto the Atlantic, the setting sun making the waves fire with thousands of golden sparks. She sighed, content, as she leaned against the railing.

  “This could be our home.”

  Deacon was smiling fondly at her, pulling her hands against his chest and kissing her knuckles before pulling her close and planting a much warmer kiss on her mouth. She sighed, turning and relaxing against his hands as they slid over her collarbones and around her neck.

  “I built this for you. You don’t have the right to leave.”

  The hands around her neck squeezed tight, and Nina turned to find Rick’s sneering face hovering just inches from hers, his mouth twisted into a cruel smirk. He was dressed in an old-fashioned starched collar and vest, a golden pocket-watch chain jangling against his waist. The hands around her neck tightened, his thumbs pressing against the hollow of her throat. She wheezed, fighting for air, while he smiled, his mouth stretching into a parody of a skeletal grin. She clawed at his hands, but his grip didn’t relent, squeezing until she thought her lungs would burst.

  He laughed as she sank to her knees, dropping a quick kiss to her forehead as he whispered, “You’ll never leave me, Catherine.”

  Nina bolted up in bed, clawing at her throat. Deacon sat up, wrapping his arms around her as she thrashed. Eventually, she relaxed, sobbing against his shoulder as the last of the dream pressure eased from her throat.

  “It’s OK,” he promised. “It was just a dream. It wasn’t real.”

  He eased her back down against the mattress as her breathing evened out. “Maybe you should get off the island for a while. It might do you some good to rest and relax a bit away from this place,” he suggested, his words so softly spoken against her cheek that it took a second for her to register what he had said. She sat up again, glaring at him through the darkness and whipping the pillow out from under his head. He yelped as she brought the pillow down against his face, ruthlessly whacking him again and again until he ripped the squishy weapon out of her hands.

  “If you try to send me away for my own good, I will get one of Dotty’s Tasers and use it on your . . . hard drive,” she growled, glancing down. Deacon’s eyes went wide, and he instinctually covered the equipment in question with the sheet.

  “OK, OK, I just thought you might be able to sleep better if ghosts weren’t giving you nightmares!” he exclaimed.

  “Well, it’s hardly a romantic gesture.”

  “I was going to put you at the Four Seasons with a personal chef, a masseuse, and your own facialist.”

  Nina pursed her lips. “Maybe I spoke too soon . . . No. No! You will not tempt me with presidential suites and shiatsu! I am not leaving. I am not going to leave you here to deal with this alone.” She rolled over him, pressing him to the mattress. “I don’t know who you’ve dealt with in the past, but I’m like a persistent little burr that won’t go away. You will not be able to get rid of me, do you understand?”

  “Do nightmares always make you this assertive?” he asked sleepily.

  “No.”

  He yawned, sweeping her grip off his wrists and gathering her to his chest. He buried his face in her hair and rubbed soothing circles on her back. “Well, that’s too bad. I kind of like it.”

  Circles on her back eventually became circles on her ass and then her hips, until he was plunging those long, talented fingers between her thighs, drawing the wet, aching response from her body into a rippling coil of sensation that had her bucking against him.

  He kissed her, swallowing her cries to keep them from waking the others down the hall.

  “Deacon,” she whimpered against his lips. And he answered by sliding inside her, rolling onto his back, urging her to move over him until she found just the right rhythm. It might have been embarrassing how quickly he could bring her to the edge, but she loved the way she responded to him, the way his eyes lit up when his touch elicited a particularly interesting sound from her lips. Nina wanted him to know how much she enjoyed him. And she did, loudly, giving one last shaky scream as she collapsed against his chest.

  Living with the ghosts of thwarted lovers was enough to teach you the value of living in the moment.

  A CLAP OF thunder startled them awake. Deacon was curled on his side, his arms wrapped around Nina’s middle. He’d been dozing, his brows furrowing slightly as if he couldn’t stop worrying, even in sleep. Smiling fondly, she rubbed her finger between his eyebrows, smoothing out the worry line.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  “I pray you don’t file a sexual-harassment suit?”

  She frowned at him. He chuckled, pushing an errant strand of hair out of her face. “This feels like a ridiculous conversation to have as an adult.”

  “Why don’t you go ahead and humor me?”

  “I like you. I would like to date you. When we return to the mainland, I would like us to spend time together that doesn’t involve possession, my ghostly ancestors, or our annoying roommates. I know that you reacted rather violently to this suggestion before, but really, if you want to leave the island at any time, say the word, and I’ll get a helicopter here to take you back.”

  “Am I fired?”

  “No! Why do you always think I’m going to fire you?”

  “Do you think I’m too weak to deal with this?”

  “No, I just want you to be safe,” he protested.

  She rubbed the tip of her nose against his. “I am safe. When I’m with you, with the group, I’m always safe.”

  He stroked her hair back from her face, watching her eyes flutter closed and her face relax into sleep. He wished she was right, that he could protect her from any threat, natural or supernatural. And while admitting that there was, in fact, a supernatural threat was a hell of a paradigm shift, it was nothing compared to the realization that he was madly, terribly, head-over-heels in love with Nina Linden, muddy boots, bad movie preferences, and all.

  He already knew that he liked her. A lot. And that he wanted to spend time with her. But as she made him dance in the rain, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to live without seeing her every day. He was in love with her. And he had no idea what to do about it.

  For now, he would have to settle for security cameras and big, armed, scary people. Dotty would have to handle the supernatural threats. And he definitely wasn’t telling his know-it-all cousin that he was in love with her friend. Or that he admitted, if only to himself, to believing in ghosts.

  There would be no talking to her after that.

  RICK SAT ON the balcony overlooking the greenhouse, grinning. It had been easier to sneak onto the island again than he’d thought it would be. Just a little one-man boat, moored on the far side of the island. The rough trip was worth it to see that bitch squirm. He was being led here, he knew that. He knew he wasn’t clever enough to get past all of the security crap on his own. Some invisible force was guiding him, telling him where to dock his boat, where to walk where he couldn’t be picked up by the security cameras. The house was guiding him. He belonged here. It belonged to him, no matter whose name was on the island. This place was his. Everything here was his. And the woman, she would pay for her crimes against him. Ignoring him, humiliating him. He would show her who was in charge.

  Rick wandered the hall of the long-abandoned nursery wing. The wallpaper hung from the walls in long, tattered strips. But in his head, he saw polished floors and silk-covered walls hung with pictures of his family and his glory days, pitching for his high school’s baseball team. This was his home now, his by right. He saw what he wanted, and he took it. That was the way the world worked. People like him knew that.

  Now all he had to do to make things perfect was to find that bag. He knew where it was, of course, it was just a matter of . . . Where the hell was it? He needed to listen to the voice. The voice in his head hadn’t led him wrong so far. But his head was so fuzzy, and his eyes wouldn’t focus on the far end of
the hall. He was so very sleepy, and he just wanted to close his eyes for a few minutes.

  No.

  He needed those jewels. The voice had promised the jewels to him. He needed them; he deserved them after what that bitch had done to undercut him. Now, if he could just focus on what the voice had told him.

  In his own bed, on the mainland, Rick snapped awake. He would go back to the island the next day and keep looking.

  A Pocket Full of Posies

  NINA SNAPPED THE sheet over the mattress, carefully avoiding the urge to press the Deacon-scented linen to her face while it fluttered down.

  Deacon walked into her room, buttoning a plaid shirt over his slightly damp “Han Shot First” T-shirt. “You know, you don’t have to make your bed every day. I haven’t made mine once since I got here.”

  “If I don’t, Cindy will just come in behind me and do it. Her obsessive-compulsive cleaning tendencies don’t allow for unmade beds.”

  He chuckled, nudging her back against the mattress. She pressed her mouth against his. “You taste like roses,” he murmured against her lips. “I wanted to say so earlier, but I was afraid it would sound like a line. And a bad line at that.”

  “It’s my lip balm,” she said. “Roy’s Rose Goo. It’s SPF thirty, and being a pale girl, I need all of the help I can get.”

  “It was more romantic when I just assumed the flowers had been absorbed into your skin by osmosis.”

  “Osmosis is romantic?”

  “Science is the new sexy.” With a grin, he eased off of the bed and kissed her palms. “I am going to the house to get some work done. I will see you around lunchtime? Sandwiches, my office?”

  “No wasabi,” Nina said, nodding.

  Deacon whistled a jaunty tune as he walked down the hallway. Nina giggled, forcing herself out of bed and remaking the damage she and Deacon had just done to the pristine sheets.