He frowned. “You smell of the dead.”
I sniffed my scrubs, then grasped that he must mean Logan. I knew what a dead body smelled like, and I wasn’t wearing that particular scent.
“What do you want?” I asked, suddenly defensive.
He looked at me with black eyes. Beads of rain dripped from his hair and ran in trails down his chest. The attraction was instantaneous. I crossed my legs and had to look away to keep from touching him.
“Have you thought about what happened last night?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said toward the floorboard.
“Then, will you be with me tonight?” He reached across the seat and placed his hand on my thigh, his voice was thick with longing.
“No.” I pushed his hand away. “You lied to me.”
“I never lied to you.”
“Well then, you omitted the truth. Same difference. Why didn’t you tell me right away? Why didn’t you tell me before—” I stopped myself. I’d almost said, before I fell in love with you. Why had I almost said that? Was I in love with him? How could I be in love with a monster?
“Before what?”
“Before now,” I said.
“I wanted to get to know you like we were human.”
“I am human,” I said through my teeth.
“I did not want to scare you away. I knew this would be hard for you.”
“You got that right.” I fidgeted in my seat. “I have a choice, Rick. I don’t have to do this.”
Before I knew what was happening, he was across the seat and in my face. With his hand on the dash and his knee on the seat next to me, there was no place for me to go. I was trapped.
“What do you mean?” he growled.
My breath came out shaky. I swallowed hard. The first time I’d met Rick I thought he reminded me of a matador. At the time, I’d been referring to his Spanish good looks. But now I realized the comparison went further. A matador’s job was to sever the bull’s spine with his sword. The red cape is to distract the bull so that the matador can have his way with it. Rick was beautiful, but he was deadly. I was the bull. All of this, his seduction of me, had been the cape, a distraction to get what he really wanted. My soul.
“I mean,” I said, my voice cracking with fear, “that this is my life. No matter what or who I was in the past, I don’t have to be that now, or ever.”
He jerked backward as if I’d punched him in the gut. The expression on his face was tortured, a pure agony that almost made me regret my words. “Who is he?” he gasped.
“Who is who?”
“The ghost whose smell lies under your skin?”
“His name is Logan. He lives in my attic.”
His fist came down on the dash and the resulting boom startled me. The back of my head hit the window when I jumped. “Of course he does. Grateful, he’s there to be sorted!”
“So? He says it doesn’t matter to him. He says I have a choice.” I rubbed the lump already forming on the back of my head.
“Do you not see that your attraction to him is an echo of who you were? Something in you seeks the power, even as you deny it. You could be a queen of souls, yet you waste yourself on one of them.”
“Logan wasn’t a waste, but I’m beginning to think this conversation is.” Anger drowned out my fear, and I moved forward in my seat. “You can’t bully me into this, Rick.”
It was his turn to shake. A tear gathered in the corner of his eye, but he shook his head and it was gone. “I am not trying to bully you into anything. You must remember that when I look at you, I see my wife. I see my long-lost love. I forget that you are young. I forget that you are a new person. Forgive me.”
He didn’t wait for my reply. Before I could pull my next breath, he was gone.
Chapter 16
I Seek Wise Counsel
It wasn’t even seven o’clock in the morning by the time I reached St. John’s hospital, but my body told me I’d packed a week of living into the first hours of the day. My shoulders sagged and there was an ache deep inside my chest. I didn’t have a name for all of my emotions. In nursing school they teach you to help people in crisis—illness, death, disfigurement, that type of thing. Somehow, none of the books I’d studied had covered when you find out you are the reincarnated soul of a witch, your neighbor is a blood-drinking immortal, and you have ghosts in your attic. I was in new territory here.
I stepped out of the break room with my stethoscope slung around my neck, knowing that no amount of medicine could cheat death. I’d always known this. I’d seen dozens of people die during my career. Only, today was the first time I could sense their souls.
The first was above the body of a ninety-three-year-old woman who’d died during the night from heart failure. She wasn’t my patient. I didn’t know her. But when I walked past her room where her daughter wept at the bedside, I saw her hovering above the bed, a glowing orb that acknowledged me with something like a nod. I sensed her in the same way I’d sensed Logan, and as I continued down the hall, the heaviness in my chest faded with distance.
My two patients kept me more than busy. They were both sedated, hooked up to machines that helped them breathe. One was in a diabetic coma, the other recovering from a heart attack. Like any other day, I did my assessments and administered my medications. But unlike yesterday, I knew they wouldn’t die. Whether it was because of Logan, Rick, or my past life, I wasn’t sure, but I was right about becoming more sensitive to the supernatural. Something had awakened inside of me, something that allowed me to sense death like I could sense a cold room. It wasn’t just the dead themselves but stages of death. I could smell it coming on some patients. For today, it was far away from mine.
“Are you ready for lunch?” Michelle caught me outside the medication room, a lopsided grin on her face. “I thought we could go check on that neuro patient.”
“What neuro patient?”
“You know, the transfer from St. Augustus. Maureen on Neuro wants our professional opinion.”
“Can it wait for another day? I really need to talk to you about something.”
“Sure.” Her expression turned serious. “What’s going on?”
“It’s a long story. Let me tell Kathleen I’m leaving and we can go to Valentine’s.”
She nodded. After I’d found my charge nurse and reported off, we headed across the street to our favorite restaurant. I slid into a secluded booth at the back, and Michelle got comfortable across from me. I dove right into the conversation, convinced I’d burst if I didn’t vent to someone.
“Michelle, I need your advice.”
“Shoot.”
“Let’s say you knew two men.”
“I like this scenario already.” She smiled and opened her menu.
“The first man is sexy beyond belief. Every time you see him your body begs you to throw yourself at him,” I said.
“Sounds good to me. What’s the catch?”
“He’s a monster.”
She looked up from her menu and laughed like I was being ridiculous. “What do you mean, like a murderer?”
I rolled that around in my brain. Rick was not the equivalent of a murderer, but I wasn’t sure what to compare him to. “Not a murderer. Someone who lives two lives, like a mob boss. By day he’s a normal businessman. Behind closed doors he’s unscrupulous.”
Michelle raised an eyebrow and frowned. “But not like the Sopranos—no killing.”
“Well, if there is killing it’s only the bad guys. He’s got a conscience but he doesn’t live a traditional life.”
“Like a pimp, a good pimp. Like he takes really good care of his prostitutes but still he’s into something horrible, like prostitution.”
“No, that’s not it either. It’s not just what he does. It’s who he is. Like let’s say he has herpes or leprosy.” I cringed. The words were out. No getting them back.
“Oh my God. He’s contagious?”
I rubbed my forehead. “Yes, let’s pretend he’s contagious with something
that is disfiguring, not deadly.”
“But that’s not really it.”
“No. Stop. You’re missing the point. The guy is gorgeous but he isn’t your traditional take-home-to-mom husband material. His life is complicated and would complicate mine. Just leave it at that.”
Michelle sighed. “Okay. What about the other guy?”
“The other guy treats you like a queen. He’s someone you can talk to all night long and knows you better than almost anyone else.”
“Okay. Is he ugly?”
“No, he’s very attractive. However, he doesn’t have a body. I mean, he doesn’t have full use of his body. He’s a quadriplegic.”
“Wow.” She let that sink in. “So, how independent is he? Is he someone who has his own life without you?”
I had to think about that one too. The leprosy analogy was somewhat of a stretch, but the quadriplegic was a bit too close for comfort. Even though Logan was independent and was in many ways taking care of me, he wasn’t able to leave the house. He had Prudence and me—that was it.
“He’s very independent but socially isolated due to his condition.”
A brunette waitress bopped over to our table and took our drink order. As soon as she turned her back on us, Michelle did what she did best, regurgitated my problem in a way that made things painfully clear.
“So, the dilemma you’re facing is whether to choose body or soul. You’re wondering whether you should feel guilty for wanting the body of the first man when the second may be the more ethical choice.”
“Yes, I think that’s it.”
“Grateful,” Michelle started, “how certain are you that each of these men are what they seem? Unless you’ve been lying to me, you’ve known them for less than a week. Do you know for sure that bad-boy dangerous is as shallow as you make him out to be? And the deep soul, will he always have the emotional connection to you that he does now? A lot can change once the newness wears off.”
This was why I liked talking to Michelle. She had a way of simplifying everything, even when it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “I guess you’re right. I haven’t known either of them long enough to know for sure. But Mr. Dangerous did lie to me.”
“About what?”
“Well, he omitted the truth about what he did for a living.”
“But you described what he did as monstrous.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Can you blame him for omitting the truth? He’s probably embarrassed about what he is. Maybe he wishes he could change.”
I hated to admit that she might be right. I didn’t know Rick, not really. I wasn’t sure of his intentions. Maybe my former self had been married to him, had lived a whole life with him, but that wasn’t me. That was someone else.
“And the other one, the perfect soul, it’s easy to do the right thing when you don’t have any other option. If he’s isolated, you might grow tired of him. No one can be the center of someone’s universe forever. It isn’t healthy. I’m sure the disability you could live with, but the dependence? You couldn’t take more than a week of it. You’ll feel suffocated.”
She was right. I couldn’t use Logan for coffee and breakfast indefinitely. He wasn’t my housekeeper. Besides Prudence, I was all he had. What would happen to him when I moved out? I didn’t know for sure. Logan had said that the next witch might not be able to send him on, but what did that mean? What would happen to him here?
Michelle didn’t have the answers I was looking for, but I knew who would, and she was the one person I should have talked to a long time ago.
“Grateful?”
“What?”
Michelle spread her hands. “Did you hear what I just said?”
“No, um, sorry. I phased out just then. What were you saying?”
“Why can’t you choose bachelor number three? I mean, why is this such a pressing issue? It’s a free country. Don’t underestimate your ability to not commit.”
I blinked in her direction. “Like, don’t commit to either of them?”
“Yes. Remember the blonde paradox? Remember Gary? You tend to rush into things, only to find out that the guy isn’t who you thought he was. Why don’t you just wait, take it slow this time, and see where it goes?”
“Uh, I’ve already not taken it slow…with both of them.”
The server returned with our drinks. I ordered a Valentine burger with cheese. Michelle opted for the garden salad, definitely the healthier choice. She was always making the healthier choice. She glared at me until the waitress stepped out of earshot.
“You’re right. You’re right,” I admitted. “I’m not good at going slow. I have needs.”
“Wait. When you say you haven’t taken it slow, you mean, um…” Michelle leaned across the table, looking around her to make sure no one was listening, “You mean sex, right?”
“Well, yes.” I bobbed my head back and forth on my shoulders. “Not sex exactly, but enough.”
“Come on, Grateful. You’re twenty-two years old. You can have sex responsibly without opening your whole life to a person. Keep sex where sex belongs, in the bedroom. Keep your heart where your heart belongs—in your chest, tightly guarded by your brain. You know, if you were a man we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Uh oh. I’d tapped on Michelle’s passionate feelings about gender equality. Better change the subject or this could take a while. “I thought you were supposed to tell me to follow my heart.”
“No! That’s terrible advice. Hearts make knee-jerk emotional decisions. Your heart picked Gary and look how that turned out. This time, you need to use your head.”
I knew she was right. Michelle was always right. But could I do it her way? Could I just wait and not make a decision about Rick or Logan or becoming the witch?
Maybe. Maybe I could.
Chapter 17
Strange Cup of Joe
By the time I’d completed my nursing duties and handed off my patients, I’d put in an hour of overtime. I plodded to my car, exhausted from thirteen hours of beeping machines, blood, and drugs. On the way home, I called my dad but he must have been with a client because it went straight to voicemail.
“Dad, I just wanted to tell you I love you. I’m so glad you told me the truth about Mom. Maybe we can have dinner Sunday night. Call me when you get a chance.”
I ended the call and pulled into a Java Jane’s for a cup of coffee. I wasn’t sure I’d stay awake on the country roads to Red Grove without it.
There was a line for the drive thru so I parked, drifting to the counter half-asleep. “I’ll have a Fall Spice Latte,” I said to the barista.
After I paid, I folded into a wooden chair at one of the bistro style tables while I waited for my grande. Even though I was exhausted, I couldn’t help but notice an old man in the corner of the café staring at me. He was giving me the hairy eyeball as if he’d just seen me on America’s Most Wanted. Beady eyes peeked out from a deeply wrinkled face of a yellow color that only comes from a lifetime of heavy smoking and abuse of alcohol.
Every self-defense class I’d ever taken emphasized that eye contact simply encourages the aggressor, so I looked away, hoping he’d lose interest. I heard him scoot his chair back on the tile and out of the corner of my eye, saw him scratch his potbelly through his stained t-shirt. Besides the barista, he and I were the only ones inside. I silently prayed he’d leave. No luck. I didn’t hear him approach until he was right next to me, close enough for me to smell his foul breath, a smell I could only compare to the stench of gangrene.
“I see you,” he said in a raspy drawl that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
My protective instincts told me to run. Instead, I turned my head and looked him square in the face, my most professional demeanor sliding into place like a mask. “If you need a doctor, the hospital is a mile north of here. You can get treatment in the emergency room.”
The wrinkles of his face swallowed his eyes as he considered what I said. He tilted his
head to the side, contemplating me with such intensity I stood up and stepped toward the counter just to get away from him.
“I’ll be right with you,” the barista said, busy finishing my latte.
The old man showed a mouthful of yellow teeth. Was that supposed to be a smile? “For now, heh-cah-tee,” he rasped. “But I see you. I see you.” And then, to my relief, he left, laughing all the way out the door.
“Here’s your latte,” the barista said, handing me the cup.
“Thanks. Jeez, that guy was creepy, huh?”
“What guy?” she asked.
“The old man who was just here talking to me. The one with wrinkles like a Shar-Pei.”
She looked at me blankly. “I didn’t see anyone. Gosh, I hope he doesn’t complain to the manager. I’m supposed to greet everyone who comes in.”
Annoyed, I grabbed my coffee and headed for the parking lot. I looked both ways, seriously freaked out by the old man’s vibe, and then strode toward my car as quickly as possible. The girl must have been half deaf and blind to miss that guy. Not to mention the smell. Ew.
I’m not sure what set me off. I didn’t hear him come up behind me, and his body was out of sight. But I knew when he lunged for me. I expected it.
One of his hands shot around my waist, the other clutched at my mouth. I grabbed both and lurched forward, sending my backside into his fat belly and using his forward momentum to launch him over my shoulder. He landed flat on his back on the pavement. I didn’t check if he was hurt. I slipped inside my Jeep and locked the doors, pulling my cell phone from my purse to call 911. I ditched that plan when the old man stood up and lunged for my car. I slammed the keys into the ignition. Fuck! The impact from that fall should’ve broken something, and it wasn’t like he was in tip-top physical condition.
I shifted into reverse, backing into the street. The man pursued me! The whole way out of the parking lot, he sprinted after my Jeep like a high school track star. I peeled forward, only happy when miles were between his wrinkled face and my bumper. When it was clear I’d escaped, I dialed 911 and relayed what had happened. Identifying myself as a nurse, I suggested the man was mentally ill and probably on PCP or something. The dispatcher promised to send a squad car.
The Ghost and The Graveyard (The Monk's Hill Witch) Page 11