by Tami Hoag
“I threw a rock at the ugly thing,” Addie said truculently. Her eyes narrowed with anger and suspicion. “Coming in to steal my bird cages.”
Rachel closed her eyes and sighed. She was sure there hadn’t been anything at the window except a figment of Addie’s imagination. She had read that paranoia was one of the more common effects of Alzheimer’s. The person wasn’t able to remember where she’d put something and wasn’t able to reason that no one else would want it, so she was sure people were stealing from her. Seeing and hearing things that weren’t there were also common nighttime occurrences for someone with Addie’s affliction. Knowing that, it seemed painfully obvious to Rachel what had happened.
“Well, he’s gone now,” Bryan said, climbing back inside. He had pulled a screw from the loose base of the railing and stood rubbing the clinging bits of rotted wood from the threads, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I’ll take care of this window first thing in the morning. For tonight-”
“You can sleep in my room tonight, Mother,” Rachel offered, not only eager to make her mother comfortable, but eager to score some brownie points with her as well.
Addie looked around the room with a slightly frantic widening of her eyes. This was her room. She knew where everything was-most of the time. She usually remembered how to get from this room to any other part of the house. But if she spent the night in Rachel’s bed, she would be lost, and everyone would see it.
“This is my room,” she said, her chin lifting. “I shall sleep in it if I so choose.”
“Mother,” Rachel said wearily, “please don’t be stubborn.”
“Never mind.” Bryan smiled suddenly, bending to take off his shoe. Using the heel for a hammer, he drove the tip of the rusty screw into the thick meeting rail of the window. Then he took a large, gloomy oil painting of a foundering ship off the wall and hung it so that it covered the entire lower portion of the window, blocking out the damp cool air that had flowed in through the broken glass.
“Good as new and more interesting to look at,” he said as he dug a crumpled scrap of paper out of his trouser pocket and scribbled something down.
Relieved, Addie’s shoulders relaxed as she let out a breath. She slipped out of Rachel’s loose embrace and went forward to pat Bryan’s cheek. “Good boy,” she said as if he were a dutiful spaniel.
“I know how fond you are of your room, Addie,” he said. He took her hand in his, but his gaze went meaningfully to Rachel. “We don’t want to uproot you if we don’t have to.”
“Hennessy, you’re a treasure,” Addie said.
Rachel sat on the bed, running a finger absently across her lower lip, reflecting on Bryan’s actions-both there and in the study below. She could still feel his arms around her, could still taste him. He kissed wonderfully. Whether or not she should have allowed him to kiss her, she felt stronger and less alone now than she had before.
Her mother looked relaxed and was happily fussing with the painting at the window, straightening it to her satisfaction, the incident of the ghost apparently forgotten already. Rachel’s thoughtful gaze slowly swept around the room with its garish red moiré silk wallpaper. A place for everything and everything in its place. Everything in the room was arranged just so. Not all the items seemed to belong there-like the weird assortment of smooth stones on the white linen dresser runner-but Addie apparently found comfort in having them there, just as she found comfort in being in the room itself.
“Good night, Addie,” Bryan said. His gaze was on Rachel as he crossed to the bed and took her by the hand. He smiled gently. “Come along, Rachel. We don’t want you to ruin your voice staying up late; what would Mrs. Ackerman say?”
She’d say you were a treasure, Hennessy, Rachel thought, a small ember of warmth glowing inside her, but she kept the words to herself as Bryan escorted her out of the room and down the hall.
“I’ll have a look around outside, and I’ll keep an eye on her room,” Bryan said. “But I doubt anything more will happen tonight.”
“I doubt anything happened at all,” Rachel muttered. “I wish you wouldn’t persist in encouraging these fantasies of hers.”
“What makes you think this was a fantasy?”
Rachel gave him a look. “An ill woman looks out her second-story window and sees a ghost she knows is trying to break in to steal her bird cages. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this out.”
“Well,” Bryan conceded grudgingly. “I’ll admit the bird cage thing is a little farfetched.”
They stopped outside the door of Rachel’s room, and Bryan leaned a shoulder against the frame. Rachel looked up at him pleadingly. “Don’t you see it, Bryan? She imagined there was something there, panicked, and threw a rock through the window.”
Bryan frowned, the corners of his handsome mouth cutting into the lean planes of his cheeks. He looked disappointed. “You didn’t see it, therefore it doesn’t exist? There are lots of things in this world that can’t quite be explained, Rachel. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, but are felt in the heart.’ Helen Keller wrote that. She was blind and deaf. Just because she couldn’t see or hear the rest of the world, do you think she gave up thinking it existed?” he asked quietly.
Rachel took a breath, preparing to argue, but it occurred to her suddenly that he had changed the subject, had subtly altered the slant of the conversation so that ghosts were only a small part of it. The man was much more clever than that innocent smile of his let on.
Holding her gaze with his, he reached up into the darkness of the hall, and when he brought his hand back down, he held a tiny white flower between his thumb and forefinger. He tickled her nose with it and gave her a sweet, lopsided smile.
“Explain that, Miss Lindquist.”
Rachel laughed and batted his hand away. “You had that up your sleeve, you charlatan.”
“You’ll never know for sure, unless you get me to take my shirt off,” he said, teasing. “And I’m not that kind of boy,” he added, squaring his big shoulders and lifting his nose in the air.
“Don’t let Mother hear you say that,” Rachel said, eyes twinkling. “She’ll think you need starch in your shorts.”
“Hardly,” Bryan muttered dryly, gritting his teeth on the surge of desire that came automatically from just looking at her. He couldn’t seem to keep his gaze from wandering to the low V of her neckline. With every subtle movement she made, the silk of the old dress slid sensuously over her creamy flesh. Lord, how he envied that dress! Just the thought of touching her made his lungs hurt from lack of oxygen.
Rachel smiled up at him, unaware of his torment. It was wonderful the way he made her feel relaxed and playful in spite of all that had happened. He had a rare way with people, Bryan did. And he was a heck of a kisser.
As if he had read her mind, he leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. The kiss caught fire as quickly as dry kindling, burning hotter and hotter as Bryan’s mouth slanted across Rachel’s. He pinned her between the doorjamb and his own body, seeking as much contact as he could get. Rachel’s arms wound around his neck, and she arched into him, swept away by a flood of physical desire that had leapt out of control before she had even had a chance to consider damming it up.
Need built inside them and around them in waves of heat. Rachel gasped at the feel of Bryan’s hand skimming down her side, tracing the outer swell of her breast, following the inward curve of her waist and the flare of her hip. His fingers stroked downward to cup her bottom and lift her against him. She gasped again at the feel of his arousal, pressing hard and urgent against her belly, and succeeded in drawing his tongue deeper into her mouth.
Somewhere in the dimming regions of her mind she knew she should have been putting an end to this instead of encouraging it, but her sense of logic seemed to have little control over the situation. Her body wanted Bryan Hennessy. She’d never been one to throw herself at a man, but it felt as if her body was ready to change that trait ri
ght now.
It didn’t make sense, she thought, struggling against the wanton need rampaging inside her. Why would she lose control this way with a man like Bryan, a man who believed in ghosts and magic, a man who, in the end, would only bring her more disappointment. She couldn’t fall for him. It just wasn’t smart.
“Good night, angel,” he whispered softly, pushing himself away from her. His chest rose and fell quickly with shallow breaths. There was a sadness in his steady gaze that made Rachel want to apologize, though she wasn’t certain for what.
He slipped the tiny white flower into her hair behind her ear and backed into the hall, tucking his hands into his trouser pockets in a vain attempt to disguise his state of arousal. “Put the flower under your pillow and you’ll have sweet dreams.”
Her confusion plain on her face, Rachel Waved to him as she disappeared into her room. And Bryan turned and wandered down the hall, thinking it was going to be another endless night.
In the long, sometimes illustrious life of Drake House, not once had the estate been owned by anyone named Wimsey. Nor had any of the owners had any children with the first name Wimsey. These facts Bryan had managed to discover easily enough, checking old records and browsing through the library books he had found. That left a number of possibilities. Wimsey might have been someone’s nickname, or he might have been a servant of one of the families or a friend or an enemy.
Or he might have been, as Rachel had interpreted the name, a whimsy, a figment of Addie’s deteriorating mind.
“No,” Bryan muttered, paging through yet another book. “I don’t believe that.”
Addie was too matter-of-fact about Wimsey. She didn’t bring his name up to garner attention or to divert attention from herself. Wimsey was real to her, and Bryan wanted badly to prove her right, if for no other reason than to show Rachel that ghosts existed as surely as dreams and rainbows and magic did.
Rachel. So responsible and practical and levelheaded. Rachel, who had been avoiding him like the plague for two days-ever since they’d shared that searing kiss at the door of her room. She believed she couldn’t have magic in her life when it was what she needed most. He meant to give it to her.
He’d made his decision. He couldn’t stop thinking about her, couldn’t stop wanting her. It seemed he had no real choice in the matter. He was going to pursue a relationship with Rachel Lindquist whether either of them thought it prudent or not.
A thread of guilt drifted through him, and he sat back in the desk chair with a sigh. Elbows on the arms of the comfortable old chair, he steepled his fingers and his gaze came to rest on the small etched-gold ring he wore on his left pinky. Even in the subdued morning light of the study the ring glittered on his finger, bright and merry and pretty, just like Serena had been.
She would have wanted him to get on with his life. She wouldn’t have wanted him to shut himself off from people the way he had been doing. His self-imposed isolation had closed him off from his gift and his magic. And since he had begun to open up again, he had begun to feel again.
He could feel himself standing unsteadily on a threshold with the cocoon of his grief behind him and the rest of his life before him. Already he could feel himself leaning through the portal toward whatever the future held for him. A part of him was eager and a part of him was sad because of it.
He bent his head and pressed a gentle kiss to the ring Serena had given him, the ring that encircled his finger in warmth, and tears rose up in his eyes as he said his final good-bye.
“Bryan?”
Rachel’s voice preceded her into the study, giving him enough warning so he could clear his throat and squeeze his eyes shut.
“Bryan, are you-oh, here you are,” Rachel said. She stopped uncertainly as she stepped into the study. Her brows pulled together in concern. “Are you all right?” she asked hesitantly.
“I’m… fine.”
He didn’t look fine, Rachel thought. He looked like a man laboring under the strain of some terrible emotion. The idea caught at her heart and squeezed it tight. Bryan was always smiling-except when he was scolding her for not believing in magic. In the short time she had known him, she had seldom seen him be entirely serious. She had never seen him in pain. Until now.
“I was resting my eyes,” Bryan lied. He plucked his glasses off and rubbed at the bleary blue orbs. “Too much reading.”
He settled his spectacles back on his nose and stared up at Rachel. She was worried about him. He could sense her concern. Warmth stirred inside him, and a soft smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.
“What are you searching for?” she asked, approaching the desk slowly, trying not to appear too curious.
She had been forcing herself to steer clear of him, but discovered she was so drawn to him that she kept dredging up excuses to seek him out. Her emotional tug-of-war was wearing her out.
“Proof of Wimsey,” he said.
“You haven’t found any, have you?” It was more a statement than a question. She felt the pendulum inside her swing away from him.
“That doesn’t mean there isn’t any,” Bryan said with forced cheerfulness, “only that I’m not looking in the right places.”
Rachel sighed, her shoulders drooping with resignation. “Do you really think this whimsy is what Mother keeps seeing at night?”
There had been two more incidents involving Addie’s elusive intruder. Both times she had been the only one to see anything. Rachel was no more convinced now than she had been that the apparition was real. Bryan, on the other hand, seemed as sure as ever that it was.
“She says not. She seems to think it’s some other entity. Odd that she’s never spoken of other ghosts before, only Wimsey,” he reflected, clearing a fat book aside so he could stare at his charts. “And there’s been almost no activity recorded in the parts of the house where these last three sightings have been.”
“So?”
“So,” he drawled, beckoning Rachel nearer still. He swept a hand across his blueprint of the house on which he had drawn a numbered grid and jotted down smaller numbers that were circled. “Sightings are almost always concentrated in specific areas. This very room, for instance, and the foyer.” He tapped his pencil to two separate grid blocks, each of which was crowded with a cluster of little numbers.
“This looks very… scientific,” Rachel said, surprised. She might have decided Bryan was no con man, but that didn’t mean she had decided to accept his so-called profession.
He gave her a wry look. “Yes, they try to train us properly at Transylvania U.”
Rachel felt a blush creep into her cheeks. “You said the other night you and Jayne went to college together.”
“Yes.” Mischief twinkled in his deep blue eyes. “She majored in witchcraft and druid rituals. Ask her to change a man into a toad for you sometime. She’s quite good at it.”
“Stop it,” Rachel commanded, narrowing her eyes at him. Laughter threatened, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I’m trying to extricate myself gracefully.”
Bryan winced. “Sounds painful.”
“You’re not making it any easier.”
“Sorry,” he said, utterly unrepentant. “Jayne and I and two other friends you will no doubt meet soon attended Notre Dame. I got my master’s at Purdue.” Rachel’s eyes widened comically. Bryan chuckled. “And you thought you Californians had cornered the market on weird.”
Her brows lowered ominously, and she tapped a finger to the blueprint. “You were explaining this to me.”
“All right,” he conceded. Maybe he would be able to convince her with a logical scientific explanation. Somehow the idea didn’t appeal to him as much as simply having her believe did. He took a deep breath and began. “Many parapsychologists believe all places are ‘haunted’ by memories of past events. Some places more strongly than others, naturally, say the scene of a violent death, for instance.”
“Why can’t I see this whimsy of Mother’s? I heard her talking to him
in the hall this morning, but when I stepped out to look, there wasn’t anybody with her.”
Bryan shrugged as he wrote himself a note to check the hall tape recorder. “Maybe you haven’t got the right kind of psychic sensitivity. You don’t want to believe in him; that doesn’t help. People tend not to see things they don’t want to see.”
“Why doesn’t he appear to you? You want to see him.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why my equipment hasn’t picked anything up either, but then, these things are never predictable. If they were, we wouldn’t call them ‘paranormal,’ would we?”
“I’m sorry,” Rachel said, shaking her head, “but I still don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Neither do many psychic investigators. As a whole, we tend to be a very skeptical lot.”
“You seem anything but skeptical.”
He grinned at her, and Rachel felt her heart lurch. She reminded herself that this was exactly why she’d been avoiding him. He made her body react entirely against the better judgment of her mind.
“I’m one in a million,” he declared happily.
That was for sure, Rachel mused, watching him as he leaned toward her. She thought he was going to kiss her again, and her lips buzzed with the memory of the kisses they had shared. But he touched the tip of his nose to hers instead, and smiled the most devastatingly sexy smile. Heat washed through her, and she unconsciously wet her lips with the tip of her tongue.
“Did you have sweet dreams the other night, angel?” he asked in a voice so soft it was like a caress.
Rachel’s cheeks bloomed red. Sweet was probably not quite the word to use regarding the dreams she’d had. Erotic was far and away the most accurate. She didn’t understand it. Bryan was hardly the first good-looking man she’d ever known. And she was categorically against getting involved with him. Why then did she continue to go on feeling such a fierce attraction?