He seemed to be thinking about it. Eventually, he ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know. I guess I never thought about it. I… I was pretty focused on being everyone’s golden child so that I could overcome all the attention about the fact that we were cursed.”
“Well, I guess we both had our burdens to bear.” The difference being he was living his out, her current issues were self-imposed. She ran her hands through his hair. “We used to watch you, my friends and me, when you were in the upper school and we were in the lower. You won every sporting event, dated every pretty girl. I never knew you were putting on some kind of show. Just looked natural to me.”
He kissed her. “My family funds half of the fundraising of that school. I was going to ask you, in your lawyerly role, to see to it that it continues. Now, pissed on your behalf, I want to pull their funding.”
She shook her head. “Don’t do that. I’ve benefited from it more than I was harmed.”
“How are you single? I know that’s a ridiculous question, but I keep asking myself that. How is there not a man in your life?”
She scrunched up her nose. “I don’t lie when I tell people who ask me out that I come with a lot of baggage. I’m terrible to date. I don’t do flirting well. I’m too serious in my conversation. I press people for truth when I should keep it light. I am too much. Period.” She tugged on his shirt. “I think I promised you more fun things to do than this.”
“I hardly even focused on this. You did all the work.” He winced. “I don’t mean to be flighty.”
“Artists are always a little bit focused on things that aren’t happening now. I don’t mind it. I liked seeing how the Bomber operated.”
He squeezed the back of her neck. “If we’d been the same age in school, I’d have seen to it that no one was mean to you, ever.”
“That might have made it worse.” She was done with this conversation. Nothing could be fixed, and even if she could go back, she wasn’t sure she’d have done it differently. Her backbone seemed to be metaphorically reestablishing itself. Melanie was glad to have it back. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs.”
* * *
Two rounds of lovemaking later, Elliot snored gently next to her. He said he didn’t sleep but twice now with her he certainly was. She kept his arms around her, holding him tightly. Maybe the trick was that he had to be kept physically very busy so that he simply wore himself out.
Movement caught her attention. The paper from earlier floated in the air, the pen writing on it. Did he compose in his sleep? She grinned. Did he even know that he did? The movement was small and off to the corner. She could ignore it if she wanted to.
A cold gust of wind floated over her and made her lift her head. That was weird. It wasn’t cold in the house.
That was when she saw her. The ghost floated into the room. She was dressed in an old fashioned, fancy dress. At least Melanie thought it was fancy. She couldn’t imagine all of that blue lace and swishy skirts being the kind of thing the woman would wear just to lounge around the house.
Melanie sighed. She was thinking about the fashion choices of ghosts and what it meant that she considered a ghost in the room relatively normal. The banging upstairs sounded again, but Mel ignored it.
All of her attention was on the woman who didn’t seem to see her at all. But ghost lady certainly had eyes for Elliot. She had an almost ethereal look on her face as she walked over and seemed to touch him.
Fear coupled with anger surged through Mel. She couldn’t have explained it if she’d had to, but she knew in the same way her ancestors must have known to get away from predators that she had to get that ghost away from Elliot. She swatted the air and nothing happened. The ghost didn’t even seem to notice.
Still, the woman touched Elliot’s cheek like she had every right to do so and it was everything she could do not to scream. The last thing she wanted was to wake Elliot, not when he struggled to sleep because of the constant bright light in his eyes. He’d lived with this ghost his whole life. Maybe Melanie needed to calm down.
She breathed through her nose and waited. After a few minutes, the ghost floated away.
This house had a ghost problem, and Melanie was going to do something about it. That was the least she could do for Elliot. He might have been fine with having them floating around, but it wasn’t normal and that ghost had gotten way too close to him. Why had she done that? What did she want?
Melanie pulled the blanket farther up both of them as though she could offer him some kind of protection with the cotton quilt. He shifted slightly, pulling her tighter against him before he snored even louder. She didn’t mind the noise. That meant he was alive. The fact that she had to think about that at all made her nauseated. Why were there ghosts here, and what did that woman want with him?
She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she did eventually drift off to sleep. Melanie tried to stop herself, but the room and Elliot were warm. The place felt easier, as if she could somehow tell the ghost was gone for the night.
In his arms, she pretended she was safe and gave into the need for sleep. Tomorrow, she was going to figure out what to do about all of this crazy.
* * *
Melanie, why don’t you play with me anymore?
The sound of a little girl’s voice banged around in her head as Mel came awake fast. Her heart raced, and she pulled her knees up to her forehead to try to calm down.
“You okay?” Elliot’s voice was soothing as he drew her to him. The early morning light told her she hadn’t been asleep very long. “Bad dreams?”
“The ghost who visited you last night freaked me out. I’m not sure what the dream was.” She shook her head to clear it. “I didn’t like her at all. She felt… wrong. Evil. I hate that word but there it is.”
He tilted his head. “Really? She’s been around always. Sometimes she talks. It’s nonsensical, like the gardener, but I’d ask her things when I was young just to get an answer. She doesn’t bother me.”
“Just because you’ve gotten used to it doesn’t make it okay. Trust me… that wasn’t normal. How she touched you. No.”
He kissed her all over her face. “I’m sorry she scared you, Mel.”
“Nothing that some good coffee and pancakes can’t fix. Come on. I’m going to feed us.”
He grinned, drawing him to her. “Not quite yet.”
Well… sex could probably draw away the ghosts, too
* * *
The doorbell rang a second after an image of Lawson arriving on the property shot into the study. “It’s Lawson,” she let Elliot and Edward know. Edward was helping her go through one of the bigger boxes while Elliot wrote with headphones in his ears. Now that he was officially outed as the Bomber, he seemed to be pretty content spending all his time writing.
She was glad to see Lawson. Not only did she need an update on Peter Evans before she forgot the outside world existed, but she needed him to get her some things to study on ghosts.
“I’ll go talk to him.” She set down the file she was studying that listed all of the cows sold during the year and went out to go see the Enforcer. Elliot jumped up, following behind her.
He grabbed her hand. “You’re really not okay because of what happened last night, are you?”
She sighed. “No. But I intend to rid the house of that ghost, and then I’ll be better.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
She stopped before she opened the door. “Anything is possible if I set my mind to it.”
“Fair enough,” he squeezed her fingers.
Lawson entered with his usual no nonsense stride. She didn’t miss him glancing at their linked hands, but she doubted he’d mention it. “How are you guys?”
She cleared her throat. “We have a ghost problem.”
He opened and closed his mouth. “I can’t say that anyone has ever uttered those words to me before.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” Elliot rocked back
on his heels. “Want a drink?”
Lawson looked between them. “I’ll have a drink. That sounds great.”
It did. With her mouth open, Melanie watched the two of them heading toward the kitchen. Lawson didn’t usually stop and have a drink. Did he? She followed behind them as Elliot proceeded to spell the wine in the fridge to pour Lawson a glass. He helped himself to one, and the next thing she knew a glass appeared in her hand, too.
“Thanks.” Lawson took a sip. “I’m officially off for the day. Long one. Peter is not easy to catch. At this point, I’d settle for catching him for doing something stupid like using magic in the human world. I could make him vanish for that. He’s acting like the patron saint of good behavior right now.”
Elliot nodded. “I knew him. Not knew him knew him, but I’d see him around. He’s a scumbag. I used to feel like he wanted to hurt all the women in the room, like he watched them for the sake of figuring out how he could cause them harm. I couldn’t concretely tell you why. Just that was what it used to feel like.”
“Oh, he sets off all my creep alarms and then some. I always say when it comes to magic, trust your gut. Half of what I do and why I’ve been successful at it is that I listen to myself.” He took another sip. “Ghosts? Really?”
“They’ve always been here. The question is really why Melanie never noticed them as a child.” Elliot floated up to the counter and sat down on it. “She wants to get rid of them.”
Lawson shook his head. “I’ll see if I can dig anything up. Actually, I’ll put Stefan on it. He is always into the obscure. Much more of a human legend than a magical one. Then again, Eleanor got possessed most of her life by an ancient witch. We do the weird in this friendship group pretty well. We’ll miss you tonight.”
She sipped her wine. “Is tonight one of Ava’s dinners?”
“It is.”
She leaned against the counter. “I’ll miss you guys, too.” The drink suddenly made more sense. Lawson did hate entertaining. It was just one of those things he did because his wife loved it. She was sure Lawson liked all of them, and it was clear he’d do anything for them considering the measures he was taking for her. But maybe the constant rotation of people eating at his house wasn’t his favorite thing in the world.
He just loved Ava so much he put up with it.
“But you’ll have an even number of people at the table for once,” she grinned.
Lawson scowled at her. “You know no one cares about that. And you are bound to meet someone someday, Melanie. If you don’t scare them off.”
“No one who was worth it would ever be scared off by her.” More wine poured into Elliot’s glass. “I doubt you’d want someone like that hanging around anyway.”
Lawson stared at Elliot. What was he assessing? It was almost like… No, there was no reason Lawson would be testing Elliot for anything.
“Nope,” Lawson agreed. “I wouldn’t. I never thought I’d be friends with Mitchell Sharpe, but he grew on me after he found Eleanor. I don’t mind the dinner party people. They’re my friends now, too. Family really. I wouldn’t want Melanie with someone who got intimidated by how smart she was.”
“That’s nice, boys. Thanks for talking about me like I’m not here.” She patted Lawson on the arm. “When I want you to big brother me I’ll let you know. I’m pretty sure I’m several months older than you anyway.”
He smirked. “Got it.”
“Have the dinner party here.” Elliot clapped his hands together. “Melanie can go if it’s here. Why not just move the whole thing here tonight?”
She stared at him for a second waiting for the punchline. “You’re kidding.”
“No, why would I be? The house is great for entertaining. We’ll do that. Here. Lawson, you can bring people in and out right? Safely? Your friends are not going to report Mel’s location to Peter. Do it here.”
She held up her hands. “Elliot, I don’t cook. I mean, other than the making do we’re doing. I can’t host anyone here in your house.”
“No, Ava would cook.” Lawson set down his drink. “This sounds like a great idea. I’ll go check with her, but assuming she doesn’t say no, let’s go with that.”
Well, color her not surprised. Lawson was going to not have to have everyone in his own house for a change. She’d bet he’d be thrilled. “Elliot, I was going to talk to you about this. Who is cleaning the house? No one is ever here. I’m not sure we can get it ready in time. I’m happy to do my part but this place is huge. I’d want days to get it guest ready.”
She did have strong feelings about the house being clean. It had been her mother’s pride and joy for years.
“I am.” He shrugged. “I have it on a constant spell to keep the floors we use clean. So not the attic or the basement but the rest of it.”
That was a ton of magic. She shook her head. It wasn’t her place to comment on how much energy he used up on a cleaning spell, even if she’d never have attempted that herself.
“All right, I guess if Elliot wants to have a dinner party… we’ll have a dinner party.”
His smile was huge. “Great.”
Chapter 9
The house had alerted them to the fact that their company was arriving. Melanie stared at herself in the mirror. Well, Elliot’s company. These were her friends, but it was his home. He’d invited them and there was no doubt in her mind he was doing it to be kind to her. She’d been off the whole day, thinking about ghosts. He probably wanted her to get happy again, to be a better houseguest. She couldn’t blame him. This was exactly what she’d meant when she’d told him that she was just too much.
Melanie could never keep things easy.
But now her friends were here—well her married friends—and she was going to sit down and have dinner with all of them. Ava’s food had arrived magically an hour before, and it had been cooking ever since. The house smelled delicious, like pot roast, potatoes, and asparagus. The wafting of the scent hit Mel hard and for a second, took her back in time, the way only a sense memory could.
She’d been told to wait on the bench in the front hall while her mother got something ready for a dinner party Elliot’s mother had been having. Mrs. Boothe had come down the stairs wearing a long black dress and a string of pearls that had caught her attention. It was hard not to give Elliot’s mother attention. She was beautiful, and also kind. The smell hadn’t been pot roast. No, it had been something with garlic, but everything that was cooked in the kitchen at the main house always smelled like heaven to her.
Melanie blinked back to herself and the present. Elliot’s mother was gone, following her husband to death, dying from a broken heart in the way that sometimes happened to those who were soul bound. But the house was still here. Elliot was still here. And Melanie did not in any way look like the lady of the house. She shook her head. She wasn’t, never would be. This was a favor her friend was doing for her.
Some of her clothes had arrived, thanks to Lawson, and she was dressed in black pants, a black scoop neck top, and a gray blazer. She’d managed to style it up just a little bit with a black belt that had a silver ring around it. Her black canvas sneakers completed whatever this look was that she was going for.
Melanie spent most of her time in dark suits for court, gray suits for the office, and her yoga pants when she was home. She’d tried to dress up and that was ridiculous because Elliot didn’t have the slightest idea what she wore.
He looked sexy as hell. For a man who couldn’t see to dress himself, he certainly knew his clothing well enough to pull out an outfit he could have worn to any of the top restaurants in town and ended up in a magazine. He wore jeans and a plaid, tailored to fit him, collared shirt beneath a black blazer. The blue and pink in his shirt would have once brought out his blue eyes. Now, he covered his eyes with his dark glasses and still managed to not look ridiculous.
Elliot really was the best looking man she’d ever seen anywhere.
“Hey…” Eleanor caught her attention. When ha
d they actually gotten inside? Wow, she was distracted. “You look so pretty. Did you put on makeup?”
She had, which was really pathetic. “Eleanor, I’m… not making good choices. Come on, let’s go have dinner.”
“He’s cute. I had no idea because I’ve never seen him before, but when he let us in, I thought oh wow, good job, Melanie. Unless you don’t think so.”
She linked their arms. “I’ve always felt that way. But it’s an impossibility, and I’m being a stupid girl.”
“I was a stupid girl, once. And he’s in the other room right now laughing at something Elliot is saying. Sometimes it’s not stupid… sometimes it’s gutsy.”
She knew that Eleanor was right but circumstances were different. “He’s got a curse they can’t get off, and it’s going to kill him like it has every male in his family for generations.”
“Yes.” Eleanor squeezed her. “Let’s hope for the best. I was taken over by an ancient witch. They cured me. Maybe it’s not too late yet. Besides, he must really like you to do this. I mean, who wants to have six people over for dinner that you don’t know from a hole in the wall while you’re battling a curse?”
That was true. “He’s very sweet.”
And talented. Smart. Kind. Funny. She could go on and on. Yep, she had it bad. Stupid girl.
The dining room buzzed with conversation. Elliot stood in the center of it all wearing his sunglasses and laughing at something that Stefan said. That was unusual. Stefan was dry, not usually funny. But they were laughing at something just the same. He turned when she entered and put out his hand.
He couldn’t see her and yet he knew when she’d shown up in a room full of conversation. She linked her fingers with his. “Nice to see you all,” she spoke to the room. “Thanks for coming. I haven’t seen all of you since the night I got myself into this mess.”
“If you want to be technical, you got yourself into this mess when you took her as a client.” Lawson shrugged. “Semantics, I suppose.”
Tragic Magic: Wards and Wands #3 Page 10