Marshall's Law

by Denise A. Agnew

  Home.

  Back to New Mexico to her cozy place filled with the books she loved, the solitude, the few friends she could depend upon. She would explain to her mother that Aunt Lucille was fine. She would finish this book and forget about Macon…someday…

  Dana knew her toughest problem, writer’s block, hadn’t resolved. Going back to New Mexico now wouldn’t mean she’d start writing again. She’d yet to spend a day sunning on the balcony and penning a few inspired words there. After today’s fiasco with Gregory at the kissing booth, the rain and her confession to Marshall, she didn’t know if she could find the interest in writing. She should. After all, the last few days had filled with enough odd occurrences and intrigue to fill a novel. Not a horror novel, though. She wanted the time and the quiet to give this story another chance so the one chapter nestled in her notebook on the side table would turn into several chapters. But how could she do that? The need, the overwhelming desire to write had sprung a leak like a helium balloon, squealing for answers and receiving none. Her muse, as her Aunt Lucille said earlier in the evening, had plumb tuckered out.

  Looking to her left, she realized she couldn’t see the heart-shaped bed from her position. The bar, pool table, stereo and ping pong table stood in the way. Still, if even a sigh erupted from that area, she’d run over there and find…what? Ghosts?

  Okay, ghosties, where are ya?

  Dana shivered as she looked at the fireplace. She should have started up the gas hearth. The glow and warmth would have comforted her but driven away the specters.

  “Bah, humbug.” She could imagine Marshall’s disapproving look. She already knew what he’d think of this set up. He’d give her an indulgent look if not a disbelieving one.

  The quiet atmosphere surrounded Dana, and she decided she’d try writing a little, even though the surging need to create remained dormant. She reached for her pen and her idea notebook sitting on the side table, shifted into a comfortable position and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, drew in several deep breaths and commanded her imagination to set to work.

  A little free writing. An attempt at unleashing what imagination she had left. Let it rip.

  She imagined a cool, splattering waterfall with diamond points of light scattering across the pond below the pounding liquid. Surprised at how easy the image came to her, she decided to let the fantasy go a little farther before she tried writing it down. Perhaps if she let her mind's eye tango instead of trying to hog-tie herself to the outline, she’d find new directions.

  Before she knew it the image increased in power. She stood at the edge of the pond, naked and trembling. Yet the trembling didn’t come from cold. Instead she sensed a power and need that shook her from the inside out, a desire to break free from constraint and convention and let the whole damn world see who resided under the veneer she’d created after she published her first novel.

  The beauty surrounding her strummed like notes from a guitar, arousing and relaxing. Bird songs filled the air, and she watched the winged creatures flit among the tall stand of pines around the area. Warm sun lit the area, but a fresh breeze brushed against her skin. She didn’t feel self-conscious. Instead she wanted to reach for the water and the excitement she knew lay beneath the shimmering liquid. Somewhere, under the rippling blue water, she’d find answers to all her problems, doubts and fears.

  Come on in…the water’s fine.

  Obeying, she jumped feet first into the cool depths. Right away she discovered the water didn’t reach her neck. In fact, it covered only half her breasts. Her nipples tingled with delicious and painful delight as the shock of the water startled her senses. Water lapped over her nipples, tickling them like a man’s tender touch. Dana tilted her head back, spread her arms over the surface and let the cool water turn to warmth. Ah, yes. She drifted there for eternity, enjoying relaxation and the continual stroke of the water under her breasts, around her breasts, over her nipples. This place gave her a thrill, deep down like a lover’s caress. Maybe she would stay here and forget to return to the real world.

  Another splash caught her attention.

  In her fantasy, her eyes flew open and she saw a man had entered the pond and swam with slow, measured strokes in her direction. Wild spirals of excitement darted through her body as Marshall glided in the water like a sleek, powerful animal. She didn’t know whether to vault from the pond or stay rooted to the spot, excitement building as he came toward her. Dana had never seen a man swim like this before, as if he conquered the water and directed its movement. His muscles bunched and released in a counterplay that mesmerized her. His wet hair gleamed, water droplets streaming down his face with each movement of his head. When he came within two feet of her he stood and the water came halfway up his chest. Rivulets of water trailed through the dark hair on his pectorals. Her temperature rose as his gaze took her in, encompassing in an assessment that spoke of undeniable needs and sensual secrets. Instead of dark chocolate, his eyes turned almost black with desire. She knew he wanted her, and wished with everything inside her he’d relent and take her in his arms.

  Dana released a shiver, a sigh parting her lips. “This is good. Really good. I’ve got to write this down.”

  Instead she longed for him to come closer and reached toward him, hoping he’d accept her hand. The dare and challenge in his eyes told her if she wanted him she’d have to make another move.

  Someone cleared his or her throat. Dana gasped and her heart almost jumped out of her chest.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dana’s eyes popped opened and she let out another gasp. She dropped her paper and pen as she stood and her blankets fell down around her ankles.

  The object of her fantasy had appeared from nowhere.

  Unlike in her wild fancies, though, this man was not naked.

  Marshall stood by the fireplace dressed in his head-to-toe black, secret agent man attire. Grinning like something was pretty funny. “Damn it, Marshall!”

  He put his fingers to his lips. “Shhhh. No need to wake Lucille.” He glanced around. “Including the ghosts.”

  She wanted to throttle him, but held back the urge. “She’s at bingo. The ghosts won’t show up if there is a whole bloody parade going through the basement. Now what the—”

  He stepped forward so fast she didn’t have time to say another word before his big hand covered her mouth and his other arm went around her waist. He jerked her close.

  Dana made muffled sounds under Marshall’s hand, but he shook his head and glared at her in warning. “I thought I heard something.”

  She stiffened in his arms, as much from the heat of his proximity as from not wanting to alert Aunt Lucille if she’d returned from bingo early. When she heard no indication Aunt Lucille was home, Dana moved in Marshall’s arms, pushing against his chest. Powerful muscle resisted her struggles. He shook his head again and kept his hand over her mouth. The feeling of his hard chest under her fingers sent a wild zing of unholy pleasure through her. She stopped moving and savored the sensation for a few seconds as it burned and tingled along her body.

  He feels good against me. So hard. So male. Good, my ass. He feels sexy as hell. Her internal dialogue demanded honesty, and yet she didn’t want to admit having this man’s arms around her caused her to light up like a Roman candle. A perverse idea came to mind. She stuck her tongue out and touched his palm with a wet wiggle.

  He cursed under his breath and stepped back like she’d slapped him.

  “Brennan Marshall,” she growled. “You annoying, big, nasty, lug-headed…” She sputtered. “Mangy, over-sized…” She sputtered again. “Damn it to hell.”

  “Go ahead. I think you missed at least a couple of letters in the alphabet.”

  “Don’t get smart with me. What are you doing here? How did you get in here?”

  “You really ought to curb that language of yours, you know. There are other words in the alphabet besides ‘hell’. Someone might get the idea to clean your mouth out with soap.”<
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  If her blood pressure hadn’t skyrocketed into the atmosphere in the last few minutes, it did now. She stalked toward him and planted her hands on her hips. “Just who do you think you are, breaking into this house? You’re not above the law, just because you are the law.”

  He held up one hand. “Calm down. I’m seeing how easy it is to break into this house.”

  “Why did you break into the house? And, I might add, disrupt a pretty good fantasy?”

  His eyebrows lifted at her last sentence, speculation fueling a fire in his gaze. “Fantasy?” His gaze dropped to the writing pad that had fallen to the floor. “Horror?”

  “Never mind.” So what if her imagination had turned toward romance rather than horror the way she’d hoped. She could dig something horrid and terrible out of the pond scene she’d created in her head. Surely.

  A tiny smirk formed at the side of his mouth. It made him appear way too handsome, especially when she wanted to be annoyed with him. “Aunt Lucille needs new locks. It was too easy to get in here. I wanted to make sure that you were both safe.”

  She wanted to thank him for the information, at the same time she wanted to brain him with the fireplace poker. “That’s all well and good, but why couldn’t you have told us you were going to try and break in here? And how did you get in?”

  “Through the far window at the end of the basement. Don’t worry, I didn’t damage anything.”

  Her brows pinched together. “I can’t believe I didn’t hear you. That’s incredible. Those are practically brand new windows.”

  Marshall lifted his stocking cap off his head and ran a hand through his hair. “Brand new, but not invincible.”

  “That doesn’t excuse the fact you broke in without telling anyone you were going to experiment. Aren’t you worried about getting in trouble with Sheriff Pizer for pulling something like this?”

  “Not at all. Sheriff Pizer knew about it and so did your aunt.”

  Immediate and clear, the message came through. “I see. Well, I guess I’ll just have a little talk with Aunt Lucille about this. Since you still don’t trust me, and apparently neither does she.”

  Maybe the hurt came through her voice, for his expression altered to some remorse. “Trust is important to you, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is. Wouldn’t it be for you?”

  “Yeah.” He narrowed the space between them. His gaze did a foray over her pajamas. Tweaking the collar of her top with his index finger, he asked, “Flannel, eh? And you talk about me.”

  Twisting her lips into a sardonic smile, she bent down to pick up her blankets, already aware of the chill in the air without them. “Wise-acre.” She fought a smile. “Since when did you get a sense of humor?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “The day I met you.”

  Soft and low, his voice made her hot and edgy and restless. Itching, frankly, for a draught to quench this odd thirst she felt whenever he stood near and asked her ridiculous and probing questions. His gaze swept over her with disconcerting evaluation.

  Dana plopped down on the couch and leaned back against the cushions. A sigh escaped her. “This is crazy. Can we wrap this up now? The ghosts will never show up with all the noise going on down here.”

  One corner of his mouth did turn up for about a half a second. “You really think that ghosts are just going to appear?”

  She shrugged. “Why not? As I said before, I wouldn’t have believed it if it hadn’t been for what I heard the other night.”

  Marshall headed for the sliding glass door, pushing aside the drapes and unlatching the door. “I’ll leave you to your ghost busting. I’ll see you Sunday at the football game.”

  Dana stood. Disappointment flickered over her, and she hated to admit she didn’t want him to leave. The feeling mingled with her confusion. “Football?”

  “Lucille didn’t tell you? Two teams of men against each other for the golden prize. Actually, it’s an annual charity event.”

  She put her hands up in a gesture of surrender, then let them flop to her sides. “Of course she didn’t tell me. No one tells me anything around here.” When he started to speak, she held one hand up. “No, don’t tell me. The prize is kissing a woman. Or getting a date with a woman, or—”

  “No.” Marshall turned away from the sliding glass door and headed toward her, each step decisive and slow.

  As he strode toward her, Dana’s heart flip-flopped. She stood stiff as a tree trunk. He came in close to her, so near she thought he might tumble her onto the couch. Swift and sure, before another synapse could connect, he leaned down and planted the lightest, sweetest kiss on her mouth she’d ever had. It couldn’t have lasted more than two seconds, and she didn’t have time to think much less respond. Before she could say a word, he turned and left. When the sliding glass door closed he dissolved into the night. Stunned, she touched her lips, expecting somehow that they would feel different. Hotter.

  Her heart picked up speed, and she let the stunning, thrilling rush invigorate her blood. Curse him. Now she’d never get to sleep.

  “So the bed didn’t make a noise?” Kerrie asked, sinking with a sigh into the chair at the breakfast nook in Aunt Lucille’s home.

  Dana stood on the other side of the breakfast bar, stirring sugar into her coffee. “Not a peep. A waste of time.”

  Today she needed super high-test caffeine. She stayed half awake all last night, parked in the basement, waiting for the heart-shaped bed to let out a groan, moan or otherwise. She rubbed her eyes. The entire time she wondered if she’d imagined the whole episode with Marshall. In fact, she couldn’t say if the tiny peck on the lips had evolved from a tired mind. It must be one big, fat illusion.

  Dana watched the coffee swirling around and around. She put down the spoon, then took a sip. “Jumping holy jalopies, this is like sludge. I’m surprised it didn’t eat through the spoon. Where did this recipe come from? Marshall’s office?”

  Chuckling, Kerrie put her mug down. “It’s not that bad.”

  “What does Aunt Lucille call this?”

  “Super-dooper java. It’s Lucille’s blend of beans. She grinds them herself. I’m surprised you haven’t tasted it before.”

  Dana wrinkled her nose in distaste. “She’s always trying something new. Maybe that’s what I should do…start up a coffee shop. This town could use a good mocha latte, cappuccino, you name it beverage shop.”

  “In your spare time? When would you write?”

  Since Kerrie seemed to be taking her seriously, Dana said, “I could write in the evenings.”

  Kerrie’s skeptical expression flowed with her next words. “You don’t write days or evenings now. What’s it going to take to get out of this slump?”

  “The mystery of the humping ghosts. Solved.”

  Kerrie laughed, her voice going from somewhat amused to hilarity in two seconds. “From what you described about last night, that doesn’t seem likely.”

  Grimacing, Dana gave her friend a weary look. “Oh, well. Nothing should surprise me in this town. I swear the weirdest things have happened since I arrived.”

  “So are you saying it’s you that’s causing the weird things or that Macon stepped out of one of your novels?”

  “That’s what I told Marshall. I mean that this town has a great Salem’s Lot atmosphere. Definitely a weird twist.” She took another swallow of coffee and decided the caffeine boost outweighed the hideous taste.

  “You aren’t afraid of the ghosts?”

  “Nah. I didn’t feel anything creepy about the basement. That’s what makes me wonder if it’s human intervention making the noises. Nothing ectoplasmic about the situation at all.”

  “Still…” Kerrie shifted her spoon around on a white paper napkin. She looked up with a puzzled expression.

  “Still what? It’s crazy I’m still here in this town trying to solve the case of bed hopping ghosts, or that someone tried to kill me?” She knew nothing would make her feel safe until whoever tried to kill
her had gone to jail.

  Kerrie shook her head. “None of the above. It’s just that something very out of joint is going on here, and I can’t decipher what it is.”

  “You’re telling me?”

  Kerrie went silent for several moments, her deep thoughts evident in the concentration she poured onto the table in front of her.

  Moments later she spoke. “And to think I was trapped in the bathroom yesterday while all that excitement was going on around me at the park.”

  “Not exactly excitement. More like terror.” Dana had told her friend about the way the storm had affected her. Kerrie had known about her phobia all along.

  Kerrie leaned back from the table, resting against the hard wood chair. Sunlight sent streamers through the parted curtains and across her face. “You haven’t told me everything. I know when you’re holding out on me. What happened in the truck while you and Marshall were sheltering in his car?”

  No way, Jose, Juan, or whatever the name might be. She couldn’t say that Marshall had almost paid her fifty dollars to kiss him. “He, uh…offered me a bit of money for a kiss.”

  The words slipped out and she slapped a hand over her own mouth.

  Kerrie’s conspiratorial grin broadened. “Aha! I see how it is. It’s just as I thought.”

  A strange panic laced through Dana, and she wished she could sink into a hole and disappear.

  Kerrie stared into her coffee, then pushed aside the almost empty mug. “Lucille and I knew you and Marshall would set sparks off each other.”

  Kerrie pushed back her chair. While she reached for the coffee pot, she nodded toward Dana’s cup. Dana made a positive motion with her hand, and Kerrie poured a new steaming cup of the nasty stuff for Dana.

  “What inspired you to do all this conspiring to get Marshall and me together?” Dana asked, resigned to the facts.

  “We didn’t conspire. We just thought if you two got within a city block of each other there’d be thunder and lightning and fireworks in general. Yesterday was good evidence.”