Dark & Dangerous: A Collection of Paranormal Treats

by Julie Kenner

  He let his hand fall, perhaps because he knew that his touch disturbed her. “You need to get out of this house for a while,” he said softly.

  “It doesn’t matter where I go,” Miranda said. “Tony’s always there, taunting me. Whispering into my ear. Touching me.” She shuddered.

  John’s hand skimmed down her arm, and she didn’t jump or step aside, not even when he took her hand in his. “Ignore him. We’re going for a walk.”

  THE LAND SURROUNDING the Garner house was wooded and lush. It was good to get away from the city, even though he loved Atlanta and always had. There was something soothing about this copse of trees, and when they turned the path and saw the pond sparkling as the sun set and cast its rays onto the water, he felt an odd sense of familiarity, as if he had known that pond would be there long before they’d taken the turn in the path.

  From the dream, he remembered that Vera and Johnny had come here, sometimes just to sit and talk, other times to make love.

  John felt as if he had been here before, too, or else he’d been in a place very much like it.

  Miranda was pale and shaken, as she had been since he’d met her. What had she been like before Tony had come into her life? Before torment had shaken her? What had the little girl whose photo still sat on her father’s desk been like? He wanted to know. She was pretty and smart and he could very easily imagine that she had a wonderful laugh.

  The sun only emphasized Miranda’s paleness and the circles under her eyes. She needed a good night’s sleep more than any woman he’d ever known. Simply surviving the past year had been a feat, and yet she did not realize that fact. She was stronger than she knew…stronger than anyone could ever know….

  “You seem familiar to me,” she said as she looked out over the water.

  “Do I?” She seemed vaguely familiar to him, as well, though he did not tell her so.

  “Yes, in an odd way you do.”

  Déjâ vu, past life memories, a simple and vague similarity to someone she had known in the past…there were many different explanations for that feeling of familiarity.

  He couldn’t dismiss the sensations that were growing inside him, and he couldn’t ignore that they grew stronger every day. There was something about Miranda Garner that made him want to wrap his arms around her and hold her close. He wanted to protect her, from Tony and from everything else. Perhaps he felt protective because he had connected in a very deep way with the man who had been her lover in another life…the man who had loved her and hated her and killed her.

  Miranda turned away from the pond and pointed into a thick copse of trees. “I was exploring one day, and I found a heart and some initials carved into a tree just beyond the edge of the growth. VL and JO.”

  “Vera Lavender and Johnny Oliver.”

  “I suppose. Do you think the J in BJ stands for John?”

  “I do,” he said, without telling her how he knew, without telling her that they had likely carved that heart just after making love…or just before. There was great passion here, lingering in the air. Passion, not love.

  “I never showed anyone else that carving. There’s still lots of interest in Vera in these parts and I know there are some who would like to know it’s there, but the heart seems so personal I just didn’t want to share it. BJ Oliver murdered her, but…I think she loved him, very much. I think she had to, in order to deceive her husband the way she did. That doesn’t make what she did okay but…It just doesn’t seem right for curious people to take a moment that was probably pure and romantic, and sully it by taking photos and scraping off bark as souvenirs.”

  “I understand.”

  She looked him in the eye. “Do you?”

  He nodded. Somehow, it was true. Not everything was meant to be shared.

  “Vera was lonely,” he said. “When Phillip was gone, even when he was here, she felt lost and apart from those around her. She put on a happy face for everyone, she hid her loneliness in grand gestures and great exuberance, but she was a very lonely woman, until she met BJ Oliver.”

  Miranda looked up at him, and at least for this moment she did not question what he could do. “I wouldn’t mind showing it to you,” she said almost reluctantly. “If you’re interested.”

  “I am.”

  They walked away from the pond, taking a narrower, overgrown path and then leaving the path and making their own way through tall weeds. Miranda led the way, and long before they reached the edge of the growth a wind kicked up and the tall weeds began to dance. Miranda’s hair was caught in the wind, and short curling strands whipped around her delicate face.

  She stepped into the shadow of the tall trees and very easily found the faded and worn carving on the trunk of an ancient tree. “Here.” She traced the heart outline with her finger, her movements slow and gentle, almost reverent. “Why would a man who loves a woman do such a thing? How could a man who claims to want only the best do such violence?”

  “May I?” John asked, standing close to Miranda and laying one finger on the carving, as she did.

  With a jolt of knowledge that came to him with a physically painful sharpness, John knew that the man who had carved this heart had adored Vera Lavender to the depths of his soul. He’d loved her, he’d wanted only to get her away from this place before it was too late….

  But she always denied him. If someone dropped by and her lover was here, she treated him as if he had come to paint a fence or trim tree limbs or cut the lawn. More than once she had greeted visitors with Johnny’s sweat mingled with hers, with the flush of lovemaking on her cheeks, with his scent still in her nose and her body trembling from his touch. And she didn’t even look directly at him. When others watched, she denied Johnny with a completeness that cut him to the bone.

  No wonder he hated her.

  The cracking sound above their heads was all the warning they had, before a limb came crashing down. John grabbed Miranda’s arm and pulled her sharply away from the tree, a split second before the thick branch crashed into the ground. It landed with a thud and a crack, directly onto the spot where they’d been standing moments earlier.

  Momentum took them both to the ground, and Miranda squealed as she fell. John covered her body as best he could, looking up to see what might’ve caused the limb to fall. There wasn’t enough wind to bring it down, and the tree was healthy…the limb that had fallen was not dried or diseased.

  Overhead he heard a soft trill of laughter, and Miranda heard it, too. She shuddered beneath him and whispered, “Tony.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JOHNNY LIFTED HEReasily and perched her on the table in the upstairs hallway, and she laughed. Not because he’d said or done something funny, but because she was so happy. She could not remember ever being so happy, not in her entire life.

  She quit laughing when her lover began to unbutton her blouse. “You have to leave him,” he said.

  “I will,” she said as Johnny pushed her blouse aside and kissed her shoulder. A trill of pure sexual sensation fluttered through her body. “I can’t stay with him another minute. I love you. I love you with all my heart.”

  “When are you going to tell him?”

  “When he comes home,” she whispered. “I promise.”

  She had planned to leave Phillip so many times, but she always chickened out when the time came. She loved Johnny, he made her happy, he made her laugh, in bed he made her scream in pleasure. But he had nothing to give her but love. That should be enough, and at times like this when he was minutes, maybe seconds, from being inside her, she believed it was enough. But when she was faced with the reality of walking away with nothing…she wasn’t sure she could. Ever.

  The house belonged to her, but Phillip controlled the money. Every penny she’d made as a dancer, as an actress, was in Phillip’s hands. She didn’t want to be poor. She hadn’t loved her husband for a very long time, but she still felt bound to him in a way she could not explain.

  But that didn’t mean she didn’t love thi
s man. It was extraordinary; she had never known it was possible to love anyone as much as she loved her Johnny.

  Johnny reached beneath her skirt, and his fingers teased the top of her stockings, flickering over bare flesh. She was perched precariously on the table. If he did not hold her she’d surely fall, but she knew Johnny would never let her fall. She spread her thighs as he lifted her skirt, and reached out to stroke his erection.

  “You’re never going to leave him.” Johnny caressed her intimately as he shared this awful truth. At times like this it was nice to pretend that they had a future, but she was afraid of the unknown, and he knew it.

  “I don’t want to talk about this now,” she whispered. She wanted him so badly, she ached. Her body, her heart…he made her ache in ways she had not known possible.

  “You never want to talk about this,” Johnny said.

  “Make love to me,” she said as she began to unfasten Johnny’s belt. She knew how to end this discussion that would never have a satisfactory ending. Sexual heat had brought them together and it would keep them together. Some days it seemed that they had more, but if this was all they had was it enough? Could she make it be enough?

  He growled at her and unfastened his trousers, and with anxious hands he pushed her skirt out of the way and pulled her underwear down and off. She couldn’t wait to have him inside her. Her body trembled, and she grew damp.

  He pushed into her, and as they became one she knew everything was going to be all right, somehow. She did love him. Maybe he didn’t believe that she knew how to love, but she did.

  She was so scared. Like it or not, she had to tell Phillip. She had to leave everything she knew behind for this man.

  “I do love you,” she said as he pushed deep and completion teased her with a pulsing and a tingle and a shudder. “Oh, Johnny.” She threw her head back, opened her eyes, and looked up into his face.

  It was John Stark’s face.

  MIRANDA CAME AWAKE with a start, sitting up and gasping for air. It only took a moment for her breath to come more easily and her heartbeat to begin to slow. A dream. Just an ordinary dream. She’d slept deeply, and Tony had not been there, plaguing her dreams as he so often did. Johnny…John Stark had been there. But it hadn’t really been him, and she hadn’t been herself….

  She combed her hair with trembling fingers and slipped from the bed, trying to leave the dream and the memory of the vivid images behind. In its own way, this dream was as disturbing as any of the nightmares Tony had invaded. At least in those nightmares she knew who she was.

  She didn’t have erotic dreams about men she’d just met.

  Three-thirty. Too early to rise…too late to plant herself in front of the television with a cup of decaf to watch an old movie. Maybe if the dream faded and she could shake it off, she could go back to sleep.

  She never slept in the dark, anymore. Tony appeared too solidly and too frequently when she slept in the dark. Two night-lights and a dim bedside lamp burned in her bedroom, as if the faint illumination could chase away the demons of the night. Miranda sat in front of the mirror and brushed her hair, studying her face in a critical way. She hadn’t bothered to look at herself this closely in almost a year, because she had not cared.

  There was new color in her cheeks, an aftereffect of the dream, she supposed. She could not remember ever being so sexually aroused, not in real life or in fantasy. She’d felt John’s fingers on her skin, the rough fabric of his trousers against the palm of her hand, and she had experienced a response that seemed real…not at all a fantasy.

  Tony appeared behind her, as a ball of light first, then taking form. This had happened so many times, she was no longer surprised.

  “Go away,” she whispered without passion.

  Tony ignored her, as always, and wrapped his hands around her neck. He did not squeeze, but the grip was threatening. She could feel his fingers there, cold and menacing. It was not the first time he’d touched her this way.

  “No man but I will ever touch you, love.”

  “You’re not a man,” she answered softly.

  “Of course I am. I’m just caught in another place. I’m terribly lost without you.”

  “You’re dead.”

  “Yes, I am. And all I want is to touch you.”

  “You will never touch me,” she said, her voice trembling.

  She felt the hands tighten around her throat, as if the fingers were real. Never before had he felt so solid. “You want him, is that it?” Tony no longer smiled. This was the face he had shown her when she’d tried to send him away, so many times. The face was petulant, and angry and not quite sane. “It’s always him. You know that it was wrong to let him touch you as if you belonged to him. So wrong. I tried to forgive you.”

  Had Tony somehow invaded her dreams? Even though the encounter with John wasn’t real, had Tony been there, watching? It was another invasion of her life, one of so many. “I didn’t let—”

  Tony continued as if he couldn’t hear her. “So many times, over and over again. No matter what I do to keep you contented, you always turn to him.”

  “You’re not making sense, Tony.”

  “I won’t allow it to happen again.”

  His hands tightened until Miranda could no longer breathe. Tony had touched her before, in his ghostly state, but never like this. Never with such force that he took her breath away.

  “I’m getting stronger, you see,” he said in a whisper. “Every day that you hold me here, you make me more powerful. I won’t live again, but I have come back for you, love. You won’t need anyone else when I’m here. Just you and me, that’s how it should be.”

  Tony could choke the life out of her, here and now. How do you fight a ghost? How do you rid yourself of someone who’s already dead?

  She couldn’t do it. John Stark could.

  Tony’s hands were wrapped so tightly around her throat she couldn’t call out, so Miranda reached out and grabbed for a bottle of perfume. At first she missed, and her fingers flailed against the dresser, but finally she was able to grasp the small bottle in her hand. She threw it against the door where it broke without making anywhere near enough noise to wake the man down the hall.

  Tony didn’t like her attempts at rousing the only other person in the house, and he pulled her away from the dresser and cursed in a soft, misty voice. But he could not restrain her entirely and keep both hands around her neck. A burst of energy carried her forward again, and she grabbed for her brush as Tony once again pulled her away from the dresser. She threw the hairbrush and it banged against the door much more loudly than the bottle of perfume. Tony yanked her back sharply and she fell to the floor. The chair in which she’d been sitting was knocked onto its side, and Miranda landed on her knees. Hard. Tony did not let go. He stood over and above her, squeezing the last breath out of her.

  The room spun and began to go gray, and while she tried to grasp at Tony’s hands she could find no grip. He could affect her, but she could not affect him. She didn’t have the strength left to throw anything else, and even if she did…nothing was within reach. Miranda began to slump onto the floor. She was going to die, right here, and Tony was going to harass her into the next life. She would never be rid of him. Never…

  “Miranda!”

  A sharp knock sounded on the door. Miranda tried to answer, but she couldn’t. John continued to knock on the solid oak door.

  Maybe she didn’t know John Stark, maybe he was a stranger to her. But tonight when she’d gone to bed she’d realized without doubt that she could trust him more than she had ever trusted Tony. That’s why she hadn’t locked the door.

  Her head spun dangerously. Johnny.

  HE HAD HEARD NOISE from this room…and the stink of a flowery perfume drifted through from the bedroom.

  Miranda did not answer, but that only made John more uneasy. If he ran into her room and she was simply asleep, having a nightmare and talking in her sleep, she’d toss him out of the house long befor
e Lara arrived.

  But what choice did he have? Something was wrong—and he knew it. Dream, ghost, or reality, something was wrong.

  Last night the door had been locked, but tonight it opened easily when he twisted the doorknob. Miranda slumped on the floor, a misty shape hovering over and all around her. The mist was wrapped around her body, and it was choking the life out of her.

  “No. I won’t allow it.” John bent down and scooped Miranda off the floor and up…away from the ghost. The angry spirit could touch her, but not him. He didn’t know why. He didn’t care why. He only cared that Miranda gasped and took a breath as he carried her toward the open door.

  The spirit stayed behind as John carried Miranda down the dark hallway, or else it became quiet and still again.

  It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Ghosts, restless spirits, the dead who refused to move on…they were everywhere. At worst, they made a little noise and rattled about in the night. In most cases, the living were not even aware that spirits were around them. What allowed Tony to physically touch Miranda? What held him here?

  Not love, John knew that much. He didn’t pretend to understand romance and the incomprehensible complexities of love, but he did know that murder and terror were not among the requirements.

  He carried Miranda to his room. There were other bedrooms in the big house, but they’d been empty for months and were stale and musty. Besides, he didn’t think he could leave Miranda alone. Not until Tony was gone for good.

  Would he ever be?

  He laid Miranda on the bed, and her thin nightgown draped around her body. “Talk to me,” he said gently as he patted her cheek. “Come on, Miranda, look me in the eye and say something so I’ll know you’re okay.”

  If she didn’t wake up he’d have no choice but to drive her to the nearest hospital. And how would he explain this? No, those are not my handprints around her throat. A ghost choked her. Not me. Never me.

  Sounded like a good way to land in jail.