Shadow Whispers

by Lexxie Couper

  Tess swallowed, the memory bringing a lump to her throat. Chad had taken more than six months of her life. He’d taken her ability to be free of fear and anger.

  She’d known she needed to get away from New York the second she’d walked away from his grave. She could still see him everywhere she turned. Everywhere she went.

  She’d needed to get away from the city she loved to learn who she had become, hoping to God it wasn’t a scared, paranoid female. She needed isolation. She needed disconnection.

  But seriously, when she’d dropped a dart onto a map of Australia to find her new home she hadn’t expected to end up in a town of less than a thousand, all of whom seemed to exist in some weird plane of reality. She might be from the Big Apple, but that didn’t make her ignorant. Did it?

  You can tear the world’s politicians to shreds with your words, you can spit out insults in five different languages, but you can’t handle four months living in the country without blaming the people?

  Letting out a sigh, Tess turned from the sight of Kangaroo Creek and dropped back onto her bed. So much for being a ball-busting, woman-of-the-world journalist. Less than half a year away from New York and she was going crazy.

  A feather-light tickle traced across the line of her bare shoulder up to the angle of her jaw and she shivered, nipples pinching into rock-hard peaks of longing. Not just crazy, sex starved as well, if the last five nights were any indication.

  Another delicate tickle played across her skin, drawing a lazy line up the long, hideous scar that ran from the base of her spine to just below her right armpit She closed her eyes, enjoying the imagined tactile sensation despite the horrible scar it travelled. The car accident had left her with more physical scars than she cared for. But none as terrible as the one on her back, where a sheered-off panel of the RV that hit Chad’s car had almost severed her spine. It was as obvious as the nose on her face.

  What hadn’t been obvious were the scars inside. Those on her heart. Those on her soul. Just as she’d never wear a backless dress again, she’d never let anyone close to her again. It wasn’t worth it. Better to live with her dreams. At least they didn’t hurt her.

  She sighed and flipped onto her back. God, she’d become maudlin.

  The finger moved again. Down the line of her stomach, over her belly button to her mons.

  Tesssa…

  Tess frowned. “Jesus, woman,” she muttered. “You’re so frustrated you’re not only feeling hands on your body, you’re hearing your name in the bloody night, as well!”

  The hospital’s psychiatrist had told her she wasn’t ready to end their sessions. What if he was right? What if the accident had turned her into some sort of socially-crippled, sex-starved loon?

  The thought was worrying. But it didn’t stop her sex fluttering and constricting with need. A need she’d denied since standing at Chad’s grave four months ago.

  She sighed again, a numb chill rolling over her. Nothing could heal the scars from her ex, not even his death.

  After six months of repeated reconstructive surgery, hours of painful physiotherapy and too many hours spent with a too intense psychiatrist, she’d been released from hospital an entirely different woman—body and soul—from the one found almost dead in Chad’s twisted, crumpled car.

  Her first destination after her release had been the cemetery. Until she saw Chad Fisher’s grave, until she saw the lump of dirt he was buried under, until she saw proof he’d never bother her again, all those hours and operations were worthless. She’d needed to see he was dead.

  The walk across the cemetery had been surreal. The biting cold winter’s day had seemed brittle, the freezing air ready to shatter. She’d threaded her way between the graves, some old and forgotten, others fresh and still adorned with bright, gaudy flowers, trying not to think about the sadness surrounding her. The icy breeze had burned her cheeks, made her nose run. She’d stuffed her hands deep into the pockets of her over-coat, her fingertips aching from the cold, her still traumatized limbs aching even more.

  With every step closer to Chad’s grave she took, the more convinced she grew he wasn’t dead. It was a trick. He merely waited for her. Watched her. As he had the duration of their short, volatile relationship. As he had the weeks after she’d ended it. Waiting in the shadows, studying her every move. Following her wherever she went, a constant presence she neither wanted nor enjoyed. Knowing she would be alone soon. Easy pickings.

  When she’d finally arrived at his grave, a chill colder than the mid-winter wind bit at her soul. She’d stood staring at the marble headstone, her eyes fixed on the epitaph.

  Chad Fisher.

  With tears and love.

  Devoted eternally to life.

  1980-2014

  A lump had formed in her throat and she’d felt her heart smashing against her breast bone. Devoted eternally to life? Devoted eternally to being a stalking, obsessive creep, was more like it. She had wanted to get closer, wanted to touch the marble stone, trace the words engraved in its smooth, black surface to prove they were real, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t stand any closer in case a cold, clammy hand burst through the dirt and grass and grabbed her ankle.

  Foolish? Yes. Ridiculous? Absolutely. But she couldn’t move. No matter how stupid she was being.

  It wasn’t until she’d read the epitaph one more time—Chad Fisher. With tears and love. Devoted eternally to life. 1980-2014 that she’d finally released the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, and a fear she didn’t want to hold anymore. She’d taken that final step, stood on the slight grass-covered mound directly before the headstone and, with a surprisingly steady hand, dropped her hospital identification band onto the ground.

  She’d looked at the small strip of white plastic lying in the grass for a long moment, bitter hate welling through her. Hate and anger so strong she’d almost thrown up. “That is the last thing of mine you will ever get, Chad Fisher,” she’d whispered, the words whipped away by a blast of icy wind. Her identification band shifted, rolled once across the grave, before a blade of grass snared its edge, trapping it still.

  An overwhelming urge to bend down and scoop up the band had rolled through her. Even giving her dead ex her hospital band was giving him too much. The wind lashed at her, making her blink and she shook her head. “Goodbye, Chad,” she’d said, as with one final look at Chad’s gravestone, the hideous scar on her back a molten line of agony, she’d turned and walked away.

  She’d left his grave and had never been back, traveling to Australia a week later on a work visa, settling in Kangaroo Creek the week after that.

  Yet that hate had never left her, and somewhere along the line it changed, manifested itself into a simmering odium directed solely at herself and her sexual needs.

  Chad’s obsession with her had hung entirely on his driving need to possess her body. To fuck her anytime, every time he wanted. Since then, the thought of sex, of being on the edge of sexual ecstasy, sent cold shivers of fear through her. Except in her dreams.

  In her dreams, she went to the edge. Went to the edge and fell over in the arms of her silent, dream lover. Willingly. Wantonly.

  Would she ever be capable of that raw, instinctual connection again?

  She didn’t think so.

  A deep sigh escaped her and she closed her eyes, trying not to think about the slight throb beating along her scar. One day, she thought, feeling sleep creep over her again, languid and seductive. One day I’ll find it.

  Until then, there were always her dreams.

  And, as though he’d been waiting, her silent, ethereal lover was there. Reaching for her. Eyes burning with a hunger that sent ripples of eager anticipation through her sleeping form.

  Tessa…

  He hurried away from the window, heart pounding. Shit. She’d almost seen him.

  Grass, deprived of water by the blistering Australian summer, crunched under his feet, a brittle sound that seemed to echo across Tess’s backyard and into the
surrounding bush. He closed his eyes for a second, biting back a curse. She could have discovered him and then all sorts of hell would break loose. He had to be more careful. What had he been thinking?

  A hot ball of squirming tension rolled through his gut as the memory of Tess at her window filled his head; long dark hair dishevelled, sublime body free of clothes. Chocolate-brown eyes ablaze with a light he longed to see directed at him.

  You were thinking with your dick.

  He shook his head, moving deeper into the night-shrouded bush. No, he wasn’t thinking with his dick, though he desired her more than he should. For too many nights to bear he’d watched her toss and turn in bed, unable to do anything to release her of her dreams no matter how much he wanted. As the sun kissed the sky each morning, he knew without doubt he was falling deeper and deeper into trouble. But it wasn’t his cock driving him. It was his heart. That small, vital organ so revered by poets and songwriters alike.

  He shot a quick glance over his shoulder, finding the hulking shadow of Tess’s home without any difficulty, despite the darkness. The pull on his soul to go back there, to enter her house, her bedroom—to enter her—was strong. Stronger than strong. A commanding desire almost too compelling to deny. To feel his hands, his flesh on her velvet-soft skin, to feel her heat permeate his being was a sin he’d willingly forfeit his existence to commit. But he couldn’t.

  Picking up his pace, he moved fluidly over the underbrush, getting as far from Tess’s home as he could. The bush devoured him, startled animals scattering in his path. A distant part of his mind marvelled at their intuitive reaction; they knew what he was. He could sense it. Their fear tainted the small sphere of actuality he occupied, rippling over the surface like sullied oil on water. They knew what he was and feared what his existence on this secular plain could do. But it mattered little.

  Because the rest of his mind sensed Tess more.

  He couldn’t take it anymore. Sinking to his knees, he tore open his trousers, wrapping trembling fingers around his turgid cock and pumping its length with brutal force.

  Every creature had needs. Even those with damned souls.

  He would pay for it later, would burn in Satan’s heinous hold, but he couldn’t stop. As long as Tess Darcy was in his mind, his need consumed him and he could deny it no more.

  As hot cum burst from the end of his cock in white spurts, arcing through the dark night to land in the dirt at his knees, Jared Pierce closed his eyes and held his breath.

  He’d been sent to protect her, not covet her. But covet her he did.

  May the Almighty have mercy on his libidinous soul.

  Chapter 2

  Kangaroo Creek’s main strip—Hill Street—was one mile long and as flat as they came. At the east end sat Divine Intervention, a small Christian bookshop run by the very shy Miss Kerry Peters that seemed far more busy than any Christian bookshop Tess knew of. At the other end, where Tess now stood, sat the Creek’s one and only library, ruled over by the silent Ms. Robyn Jones. Tess had been assured by one of the locals that the librarian could in fact speak, but in the six or so times she’d entered the somber building she’d seen no evidence of it.

  To Tess’s cynical journalist’s mind, there was a perverse irony in the sun rising each day on the word of God and setting each night on the words of just about everyone else. It was as though Faith and Knowledge faced off each day in the small rural town. The fact that Divine Intervention had at least triple the number of souls crossing its threshold every day made Tess a little uneasy and for some reason, sad.

  She moved her camera strap higher onto her shoulder and continued walking east. A dry gully sat behind the library, overlooked by a long dead weeping willow. By its massive size and impressive trunk, the tree had survived more than one summer presiding over the once watering hole, but this drought seemed to finally have beaten it. Its long branches, devoid of leaves, hung listless from gnarled branches, lifeless fingers reaching for the hope of moisture in soil long cracked and barren. The tree spoke to Tess, a sad testament to the brutal nature of life in Australia away from the lush rain-soaked coastal edge. She wanted to capture its moving story in black and white.

  The first thing she’d done after moving into her new home, well, after locating the unwanted dead houseguest—a bloated, rotting possum carcass well on its way to decomposing into mush in the bottom of the bathtub—and giving it a hasty burial in the backyard, was turn the house’s small outside laundry into a dark room. She’d paid her way through university working as a freelance photographer and wanted to reconnect with that first love. Photography already afforded her a chance to immerse herself in the visual, a world of light and shadows and color and tone. A world where words were superfluous and hidden meaning just waited to be seen, to be brought into focus by a carefully framed image or exposure.

  She’d made a small fortune by manipulating the written word, but she’d known there’d be no need for a political investigative journalist this far from civilization. Capturing the harsh beauty of the Outback, its isolation and tenacious spirit, was one way of finding who she was now. If there ever was a town that encapsulated the Australian wilderness, it was Kangaroo Creek. The thought of losing herself in her camera sent an excited thrill through Tess she hadn’t felt for many, many years. Not since the first interview she’d conducted at the beginning of her career.

  She snorted. Who knew she’d grown so disenchanted with her ball-busting, take-no-prisoners journalism career? When had her love of words become so tenuous?

  Maybe when Chad started writing you love poems every day, proclaiming his undying devotion and lust? Or when he started writing letters demanding you—

  “Morning, miss.”

  The gruff male voice with its thick Australian accent shattered Tess’s reverie and she started, snapping her attention to the man in flannel and dirty jeans before her. She gripped the strap on her camera tighter, glancing around. The sidewalk was empty, except for the man. “Can I help you?”

  The man—obviously a farmer in town for supplies—raised his eyebrows as if something was truly amiss. Then a smile stretched his mouth, revealing the most awful set of mail-order dentures Tess had ever seen. “Aaah.” He nodded, pale eyes bright with sudden understanding. “You’d be that Yank sheila living in the old Milat house everyone in the pub’s been talkin’ about. Moved here from New York lookin’ for a sea-change, right?” He gave a dry, somehow snide chuckle. At his ankles a skinny dog sniffed its balls. “No sea here, miss. Only miles of dead dirt and dead sheep.”

  Tess blinked, a shiver wanting to run up her spine. She shoved it down, wondering instead how the farmer would react if she told him about the live rats running the streets of New York. Or took his picture.

  “The bush ain’t kind to city folk, miss,” he went on. “’Specially pretty little things from America lookin’ for something that ain’t there.” He tipped her a wink, the action both misogynistic and creepy. “You should go back to New York. It’s safer there.”

  That chilled shiver tried to shoot up Tess’s back again. What did he mean by safer? Grinding her teeth, she gave him a flat stare. “Actually, I’m just about to go and shoot some of those dead sheep you mentioned.” Lifting the heavy camera in her hand, she jiggled it about pointedly. “Would you like to—”

  “Mervyn Sullivan.”

  A sharp female voice cracked the tension, cutting Tess’s comeback short. “Stop harassing Ms. Darcy and get back to work. Your cows aren’t going to slaughter themselves.”

  The farmer flinched and his dog took off down the street with a high yelp, almost knocking Tess over as it fled. Casting her a dark look, eyes resentful and surly, the farmer shoved past her. “Stupid fucking mutt.”

  “Please excuse Merv, Ms. Darcy.” That woman’s coolly sharp voice sliced through the air and Tess turned around, finding a tall, striking redhead standing behind her on the steps of the library. Eyes the color of freshly cut grass studied her, missing nothing. Tess co
cked an eyebrow, holding back a grin. So, the librarian has a voice after all. “The bank is on the verge of taking his farm,” Robyn Jones continued, poised as ever, “and he’s developed a dislike for anyone from the city. Even cities in other countries.”

  Tess gave the woman a slight nod. “It’s perfectly okay, Ms. Jones.”

  The librarian raised one of her own finely arched eyebrows. “Please, call me Robyn. And it’s not okay. Not after everything you’ve been through before moving here.” She paused. “Not after what Chad put you through.”

  Tess’s blood turned to ice. How did she know that? No one in the Creek knew about Chad. Virtually no one in New York did either. She had no family to speak of and she hadn’t told any of her friends or colleagues he’d been stalking her.

  Green eyes regarded her, seemingly seeing everything. “There’s something I’d like to show you, Ms. Darcy. Something Mr. Jenkins, the postmaster delivered to my hand this morning. Will you join me in my office?”

  A stinging jolt shot up the length of Tess’s scar and she flinched, the powerful desire to shout “no” sitting heavy on her chest. But the reaction made no sense, even if it was from her gut, which she trusted without question. What could the woman possibly show her that was worse than an obsessed ex-boyfriend planning her abduction and rape?

  What indeed?

  “Well?” Ms. Jones asked with a twist of her lips.

  Holding Robyn’s green gaze with her own, Tess mounted the stairs. Heart pounding in a way it shouldn’t.

  Cool, dry air folded around her as she stepped into the old, stone building, shocking her sun-flushed skin. Her nipples pinched into rock-hard tips, sending shots of electricity through her body as they rubbed against the coarse cotton of her tank top.

  “This way, Ms. Darcy.”

  Robyn moved deeper into the dim library, spine straight, stride long and sure. She did not turn to see if Tess followed her past the rows of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a fact Tess found both irksome and annoying. For a defiant moment she considered leaving, if for no other reason than to bring the haughty librarian down a peg. But then the sound of Chad’s name falling from Robyn’s perfectly red lips echoed through her head and she began moving. She wanted to know how the librarian of a small town in rural Australia knew her dead ex-boyfriend’s name. And her cold curiosity had nothing to do with once being a journalist.