by Julie Kenner
“Perhaps we should go to your friend’s house,” John suggested.
“You want to drive in this weather?”
“It might be preferable to sticking around here,” he said calmly. “I’m feeling uneasy about staying here tonight.”
“What difference does it make? Tony follows me everywhere. I tried to run, it didn’t work.”
“Yes, but tonight he wants you here, in this house,” John said. A chill walked up his spine. Tony wanted him here, too. But why?
Miranda nodded her head and rose almost jerkily. “I’ll get my purse. We can take my car. It’s closer to the door.” She took a flashlight from a desk drawer and turned it on before dousing the candles.
John followed her as she walked into the kitchen, where she grabbed her purse from the counter and delved inside for the keys. They didn’t run for the front door, but they walked briskly, anxious to escape. As they reached the entrance to the old house, John took Miranda’s elbow to guide her. She was scared, more scared than she’d ever been, and Tony was all around her.
She threw open the front door as a bolt of lightning split the sky. The thunder cracked, and at the end of the long drive a tall pine fell with a crackle as resounding and loud as the thunder. They watched as the pine fell, landing across the driveway.
Miranda stood in the open doorway, stunned and more afraid than before as the wind and rain blew against her. “We’re trapped,” she said. “It’s too far to walk in this storm.” Another bolt of brilliant lightning proved that point.
She turned into him and John dutifully wrapped his arms around her. “It will be all right,” he said as he pulled her inside and closed the door. As he held her, he had a vision of the night to come. There wasn’t much in this world that made him shudder, but this vision chilled him to the bone.
Unless they found a way to send Tony away tonight, neither of them would live until morning.
John felt an odd shifting inside him, as he held Miranda. The shifting wasn’t painful, but it was curious. His head swam and his knees tried to buckle. He faded, he was displaced…he changed.
He looked down at the woman in his arms, and he smiled—as he often did when he held her.
“Vera, darling, what have you done to your hair?” He lowered his lips to her throat and kissed her. Her skin was so soft, and it tasted so good. Until he’d found her, he hadn’t known anything so fine existed. Not for him. She shuddered beneath him, she shivered and held on tight. “I like it,” he whispered.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“JOHN,” MIRANDASAID SOFTLY. Her heart thudded. He had looked at her so strangely right before he’d kissed her throat. “What’s wrong?”
He continued to kiss her throat, scattering gentle kisses here and there. “What’s wrong?” he asked darkly. “You know very well what’s wrong. There was a time when you said you couldn’t love me, but that’s changed. Now you tell me again and again that you love me, but you still won’t leave Phillip. I think you only love me when I’m inside you.” One hand skimmed down past her stomach to rest between her legs. “Is that love?” he whispered as he stroked her through the thickness of her jeans. “You’ve ruined me. Half the time I can’t think straight. I lose my temper, I daydream when I should be working…I haven’t painted a decent picture in months because I can’t concentrate. I wasn’t like this before I met you, Vera.”
Vera? Again, Miranda’s heart thudded hard. “John, listen to me. I’m not Vera. I’m Miranda. Remember? Vera’s dead.”
His body jerked like he’d been shot, and he pulled his hand away from her. Slowly, his head pulled away, too. “Dead,” he whispered. “What have I done?” He took two steps back and looked down at his hands. “This is your blood…her blood, on my hands. Always on my hands. It’s my fault. I never should’ve touched her. I never should’ve…”
Miranda didn’t know what to do, so she relied on old movies for inspiration. She drew back her hand and slapped John across the face, hoping to bring him to his senses. The sound of her hand smacking against his cheek was loud in the foyer. His head snapped around, and then immediately he turned on her. His hand reared back, he took a step forward and she prepared herself for the blow that was to come.
But the blow never came. He stopped, almost as if he were frozen, and then the hand fell. “Miranda?” he whispered. “What happened?”
“I was just about to ask you the same question.”
For a long moment, several silent seconds where it seemed the wind tried to blow the sturdy house away, John stared at his hands. “Time is bending,” he said in a low, gruff voice. “Shifting and bending and merging.”
Since he’d called her Vera, that possibility was as frightening as Tony choking the life out of her. Miranda was just about to decide that running to town through a raging storm was preferable to staying here.
John lifted his head and stared at her, hard and flinty. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” he said, accusation in his voice. “Something to do with Phillip. Tony,” he said quickly, correcting himself. “Tony. You bound yourself to him in some way, and it keeps us coming back again and again, caught in this cycle where nothing is ever as it should be.”
Outside the walls of the dark house, a very close clap of thunder made her put aside her urge to run. “You’re not making any sense,” she said when the boom had faded.
“No, for the first time in days I am making sense. This isn’t the first lifetime in which Tony has stalked you. It isn’t the first time he’s made us miserable. He considers you his, because you gave him permission to own you, heart and soul.”
Her heart skipped a beat. Reincarnation had once been as unreal to her as ghosts, woo-woo for flakes and those who dealt in fiction. But at this point she wasn’t going to dismiss anything as impossible. In a way, what John was saying rang true. “Tony said, once, that I had given him my heart.”
“That would do it,” John said. “Words are powerful. Spoken in the right circumstances, that might very well—”
“I never said anything even remotely resembling the presentation of my heart,” she interrupted.
“Not in this lifetime,” John said calmly. He turned and walked into the parlor, where he relit the candles. They gave off a better glow than the flashlight he carried, though it was not a particularly steady light.
It struck her like a thunderbolt that she had seen him this way before, in candlelight, afraid for his life…and for hers.
“We’re caught in a triangle,” John said as he walked slowly toward her. “I don’t know how old it is. Hundreds of years, surely, maybe a thousand or more. We repeat this triangle again and again, we make the same mistakes over and over, and in the end we always lose. Tony always wins because you allow him to win. You gave away that which you should have guarded more closely. Your heart. Your very soul. Long, long ago, you allowed him to convince you that it was right that you give these precious possessions into his keeping, but he was not a worthy keeper of such treasures.”
“You’re scaring me,” she whispered.
“Good,” John rasped. “You should be scared. You should be absolutely terrified. I am. In every life, Tony, Phillip, Adair, Carlo…the same soul with a different name, he comes back to claim what you gave him, and you and I end up dead.”
She wanted to deny that such a thing was possible, but deep down she quivered and knew that John spoke the truth. “How do we make him stop?”
“Take it back.” He tipped her head back so she was looking him in the eye. “In every life you give me your body, but you can give nothing more because he has it. He hoards what is yours to share. Take it back.”
“I don’t know how.”
The house began to shake, a cold wind circled around her, and then Tony was behind her, whispering in her ear. “He killed you before, love, and he’ll kill you again. Ask him if he’s ever had your blood on his hands. Ask him how many times he’s taken your life because you refused to give him what he wanted.”
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br /> John had looked at his hands in the foyer and mentioned blood. Her blood. If he had been BJ Oliver in his last life, then he’d murdered her before.
She drew away from John, and he did not try to pull her back. “I don’t know who to trust.”
“Trust me,” he said.
“Trust him and he will kill you,” Tony said. “I would never hurt you. I’ve loved you forever, Miranda, and I will love you until the end of time. Per sempre miniera.”
Forever mine.
Miranda turned to face Tony, a misty light that fought to maintain his presence here. “Show yourself to me,” she said. “You’ve done it before. I know you can do it again.”
“Miranda, don’t,” John said. “Invite him into your life and he’ll never go. You’ll never have a moment’s peace.”
She lifted her hand to silence John, as Tony did as she asked. The ghost who had stalked and terrorized her for a year took form close to her. He shimmered. Miranda lifted her hand and gently touched his cheek. “Let everything that happened in past lives go,” she said. “I never meant to bind you to me. I never meant to ruin your life and mine. I’m sorry that I burdened you with such a hardship. I’m so sorry.”
“It was never a hardship to keep your heart and soul,” Tony said. “The keeping of them made you mine.”
“I want them back,” she said gently. “I want my heart and my soul returned to me, now. I release you from whatever bonds I created between us by making such a gift.”
She dropped her hand, “I don’t love you,” she said softly. “I don’t think I ever did.”
He disappeared, slowly and completely.
The storm was moving away, but the electricity had not yet come back on. Miranda turned to John. “Tony’s gone.”
John nodded. “Yes, he is.”
She stepped into the arms of this man she was meant to share at least one lifetime with, and he embraced her.
VERA PRIMPEDbefore the mirror, making sure her hair and her makeup and her nightgown were just right. Johnny would be here soon, and even though he had been here just this afternoon she was already anxious to see him.
It was scary, but she’d made her decision. When Phillip returned from Hollywood, she’d tell him that she wanted a divorce. She loved Johnny, at least she thought she did. He kept telling her that somehow they would make it work. Maybe he was right.
The front door opened and closed, and she ran to the stairs. Since she’d left a light burning in the hallway for Johnny’s return, she could see her husband climbing the stairs.
“Phillip,” she said, her heart pounding unnaturally. “I didn’t expect you back for several days.”
“Obviously,” he answered, lifting his head so she could see his eyes. They were red and swollen and so angry.
Somehow, he knew.
Vera backed away a few steps. Someone had seen Johnny here and started a rumor, or maybe some nosy body had seen the way she’d looked at her lover, when she thought no one was watching. All she had to do was convince Phillip that what he suspected was wrong…even though what he suspected was very, very right. “I don’t know what you heard…”
“I didn’t hear anything,” he said as he reached the upstairs hallway. “Well, grunting and moaning and whispers of love, as I arrived home early in order to surprise my lovely wife. Other than those disgusting noises I didn’t hear anything at all. What I saw as I crept up the stairs, on the other hand, was quite startling.”
This afternoon, when Johnny had made love to her in the hallway and she’d decided that she had no choice but to leave what she knew behind to be with him…Phillip had been watching. She could talk sense into her husband, she’d always been able to reason with him. He didn’t look at all reasonable, at the moment.
“It was nothing, Phillip,” she said as he approached her. “I was lonely, and you’re away so often. I faltered, that’s all.” Now was the time to tell him that she was leaving, but she couldn’t make herself do it. Not now when he looked so sad and angry and betrayed.
Phillip grabbed her and set her on the table in the hallway, where just this afternoon Johnny had made love to her. The arrangement of fresh flowers fell, water splashing over the table, fresh blooms spilling across the table and onto the floor. “Do you think I will ever let anyone else have you?” he asked as he grabbed her nightgown and shook her. “You are mine, Vera. Forever. Don’t you understand what forever means?” With that he reached into his jacket and pulled out a knife.
Vera screamed, but she soon stopped. Her husband was going to threaten her, to frighten her, but he’d never hurt her. Not Phillip. He loved her.
She believed that his love for her would save her, even as Phillip stabbed her again and again. She screamed, until she couldn’t scream anymore. He pulled her from the table and threw her to the floor, so that she stared up at the ceiling while her husband cried and cursed and killed her. Eventually he stopped stabbing her and he went away, crying still.
She should’ve died quickly, but something kept her hanging on and she was still alive when Johnny arrived. He ran up the stairs expecting to find her in bed, and instead he discovered her lying on the hallway floor, crushed flowers all around her and blood staining her gown and her body. She tried to call out to him, but she couldn’t speak.
“Vera?” he asked in an odd voice. He dropped to his knees and touched her bloody gown as if he could not believe what he was seeing. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never should’ve left you here alone. Who did this to you?” He lifted her gently and held her in his warm embrace. For a moment, just a moment, she thought everything was going to be all right, now that she and Johnny were together.
“It was your husband, wasn’t it?” Johnny asked. “He found out about us. Oh, Vera, I’m so sorry….”
She saw Phillip coming up behind Johnny, and she opened her mouth to warn the man she loved. But no words came out, not even when Phillip lifted the gun to Johnny’s temple. Johnny was holding her in his arms and telling her how sorry he was when Phillip pulled the trigger….
JOHN WOKE UP with a start, the dream/vision so startlingly real he could still smell Vera’s blood and the fresh flowers that had been spilled all around her. No wonder the stench of fresh blooms always made him gag.
Until now, he’d seen what had happened only through Oliver’s eyes. He’d felt the anger and frustration, and that made it easy to believe that Vera’s lover had killed her. It was a relief to know that he had not.
The lights had come on again. He and Miranda were both sleeping in the parlor; he in the not-so-easy chair, she stretched out on the sofa. Just as well. He wasn’t ready to be alone, not yet. Neither was Miranda, apparently, though she seemed to be sleeping peacefully enough, at the moment. He watched her, and oddly enough that pastime comforted him, deep down. She was so beautiful, and even though she had hidden her laughter and passion…they remained. They were waiting for the right man to let them loose.
He was that man. He knew it in a way he had never known anything about his own life.
The house seemed quiet enough, but he wasn’t entirely convinced that Tony was gone. It was true that words had power, and that to give away one’s heart and soul were foolish and not so easy to undo. Such precious things were meant to be shared, not presented on a silver platter for safekeeping.
He left the chair, stretched and walked toward a sleeping Miranda. She woke before he reached her, and she smiled up at him.
“I didn’t kill you,” he said without preamble.
Her eyebrows arched slightly.
“Well, BJ Oliver didn’t kill Vera. He found her, dying. Phillip killed them both.”
She sat up slowly. “He was in Hollywood.”
John shook his head. “He came home early and found out about Vera and BJ, and he couldn’t bear the idea of letting her go.” He sat on the couch beside Miranda, as she stretched and came awake. “She was going to leave her husband, uncertainties and all. She did…love Johnny.”
&
nbsp; “Vera must’ve loved him very much.”
Miranda leaned in and kissed him, much as she had that afternoon. It was an easy kiss, arousing and natural. Without Tony’s ghost between them, without the fear that John himself might somehow do her harm, it was easy to let all his fears go and just enjoy the kiss. He had to admit…he liked it. Very much. The kiss went on and on, growing deeper and more intimate, and he fell into it so easily, as if he’d kissed Miranda just this way a thousand times.
Rain pattered on the windows, and the old house creaked on occasion, as old houses often do. Other than that, there was no sound beyond their breathing and the rasp of annoying clothing.
The kiss changed. Miranda’s lips parted, her tongue teased his, and she reclined on the couch, drawing him down to lie atop her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and only the soft rasp of denim—his and hers—kept him from making love to her here and now. Her arms draped around his neck and she held onto him as they kissed. He was hard; she was ready; this was right. She rocked against him, in a subtle, almost unconscious way, inviting more, asking for everything.
Just as subtle was the way she pushed him away. Of course she pushed him away. He barely knew her…he knew her to his soul. He had just met her…he’d known her forever.
John reached for a touch of control. The woman was trying to drive him crazy. Another part of his brain went elsewhere. Did he have a condom in his bag upstairs? Maybe. Surely.
Crap, Miranda was messing with his head the same way Vera had messed with BJ Oliver. One surprise after another…never knowing what might come next….
“This couch is not suitable for proper lovemaking,” she said as they reached a sitting position. She kissed him again, whipped her shirt over her head, and leaped from the sofa to run from the room. John followed, and from the foyer she laughed. He had always wanted to hear her laugh this way.
In the entryway he saw that her bra was draped over the banister. Her shoes were discarded on the stairs, one and then another.