by Nina Bruhns
“Is something the matter, Mr. Leland?” a young waiter called as they passed.
“She saw a rat,” Ry called back. “I’ll catch her and calm her down.”
“I saw a rat, all right,” Giselle shouted, turning down a narrow hallway. Giselle glanced back again. Ry had closed to within reaching distance. To her right she saw a door with a small sign on it. It must be a ladies’ room.
She grabbed the knob and pulled the door open. Ry was almost on her heels as she darted inside. She ran into something that clattered and fell. Darn it. Cleaning supplies. She’d run into a closet of cleaning supplies. A small, dark, closet of cleaning supplies. Before Giselle could react and back out of the closet, Ry rammed in behind her. The door slammed shut, closing them inside.
Ry made a big, tough, inflexible wall pressed to Giselle’s back in the darkness. His breath chugged through his chest, out his mouth, and onto the top of her head like the air from an open oven.
“What the—” Ry began.
“We’re in a closet, Mr. Genius.”
“Why did you come in here?”
“I was trying to get away from you. And besides, I thought it was the ladies’ room.”
Ry snorted. “So you led us into a closet, Miss Genius.”
“Just open the door and let us out.”
“I’d like those photos first, if you please,” Ry said silkily.
“I can hardly lift my arm in here without hitting something. Just let us out of here.” The closeness of the closet started to affect her. Her breath shortened to a rasp. “Let me out of here right now.” Her voice had more than a hint of panic.
Her looming hysteria must have transmitted itself to Ry, because she felt him move. The inside knob clanked in a hollow rattle.
“Hurry. Open it.” Desperate now, she gasped. There was no oxygen in here. The closet must be sealed. They were going to suffocate. They were going to die.
“I’m trying, but it’s hard to get a grip from this angle,” Ry grumbled.
“Let me do it.” Giselle squirmed and wiggled against Ry’s hard body. If only she didn’t feel so panicky. She could be enjoying this.
She’d gotten her body about halfway facing him when she snagged her skirt on something in the closet. She jerked free and the top of her head impacted something hard.
“Ow. You got me in the chin,” he said.
“I’m sorry, but it didn’t feel so good to me either, you know.”
She twisted again and felt her knee jab him in the thighbone.
“Ouch.”
She stepped on his foot.
“Ow.”
“Sor—ry,” she sang. “I’ll try not to damage anything important.” Unexpectedly, the exchange left her a lot calmer. Tormenting Ry had dissipated her panic.
“Open the door already,” Ry said.
Giselle chuckled. Yeah. Ry’s distress made her feel a lot better. Besides, Mr. Meanie deserved it. Giselle brought her right arm around Ry and grasped the doorknob. She tried to turn it and push the door. The doorknob wouldn’t move. She shoved. No movement in the door either.
“It opens outward,” Ry said with a dry tone.
“I know. I turned it and pushed outward. It didn’t work.”
“Try pulling and then pushing when you turn it.”
Giselle pushed then pulled while turning the knob. The knob turned this time. Success. But then.
“Uh-oh,” Giselle said.
“What?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t”
“Yes, I do.”
“The doorknob came off.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I told you so.”
Ry shoved his back against the door. It still wouldn’t open.
“We’re going to have to raise a ruckus and get someone to open it from the other side,” Ry said.
“Hey out there, open the door,” Giselle screamed as she pounded her fist on the hard surface over his shoulder.
“Stop!”
“What?”
“You’re breaking my eardrums.”
“Sorry.”
“Really?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Jeez.” She really was sorry this time. She didn’t want him to go deaf. It was easier to torture someone if they could hear.
“Let’s yell together this time.” Ry sounded like he was instructing a child. “One, two, three, go.” They yelled, Giselle pounded and Ry kicked the door. It went on forever. At least three minutes.
“Stop,” Ry finally said. “Let’s rest for a while and then try again.”
An uncomfortable silence enveloped them. Giselle’s senses sang with awareness of Ry there in the darkness. His firm body was touching all along hers. He smelled of sandalwood cologne mixed with a male heat. A girl could get intoxicated on that smell. A girl could lose her head with that smell. A guy could go from Mr. Meanie back to Mr. Scrumptious with that smell.
Ry was affected by her proximity also. His arms slipped around her with his hands pressed against the small of her back. He shifted against her and his breath came faster through his lips, a minty breeze. It didn’t help her.
“I’ve got to pee,” Giselle blurted out, and the spell broke.
Ry chuckled.
“Don’t laugh. This is a serious problem.”
“I’ve got a solution,” Ry said. “There are cleaning supplies in this closet. In fact, I’m sure I saw a bucket on the shelf before the door closed.”
“Very funny,” Giselle said. “Distract me. Talk about something.”
“I could hold the bucket for you.”
“Something else.”
More deep laughter. “All right. I’ll change the subject. Are you going to give me those photographs?”
“Can’t you take your own pictures of your girlfriend?”
Giselle could feel him bristle. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s a client.” Giselle had the feeling that he’d blurted out the last bit. For some reason the information gave her pleasure.
“If she didn’t want to be seen with you, then why were you in a public place?”
He remained silent for a moment and Giselle thought he wouldn’t answer her. Then he spoke. “It was a kind of hide-in-plain-sight plan. Obviously, with you in town, the plan was doomed. The lady has a bit of local notoriety and doesn’t want those photos floating around.”
She smiled.
“You’re a menace,” he said.
She frowned.
“Well?” he asked.
“Well, what?”
“For God’s sake. Will you just give me those photographs.”
“It depends. What will you give me for them? Will you let me hire you to help with my investigation?”
“That bogus ghost hunt? No way.”
“Then you’re not getting the photos.”
“I could just take them,” Ry warned.
Giselle put her arms protectively over her chest. The movement caused a small collapse of some unknown products on the shelf behind her. “You wouldn’t dare.” Silence. “Would you?” The words came out with a squeak.
Silence. And then, “No. I wouldn’t.” His tone was glum.
Giselle let out the breath she’d been holding with relief and dropped her hands. Then, to her outrage, she felt Ry’s left hand move from around her back, thrust down the front of her peasant blouse and start fishing around.
“Hey. Stop that.” Giselle slapped at his hand, but it continued groping down into her left bra cup. His hand touched her breast but in a clinical way. Dammit.
“Find anything interesting in there?” she asked with sarcasm to cover her embarrassment.
“Yeah a lot…but sadly no photos.” He removed his hand from her breast and it returned to her lower back.
It was a good thing she’d moved the photos from her bra to inside the band of her skirt as she ran down the hall.
“Okay. Where are they?”
/> “Are you going to help me with my investigation?”
“No.”
“Why nooooot,” she whined.
“Why is it so important? It’s just some ridiculous search for something that doesn’t exist.”
“Don’t say that. Ghosts have got to exist because I’ve got to find objective evidence of a ghost and write an article. If I don’t, my boss is going to fire me by close of business Monday.”
There was a long silence.
“I’m sorry.” Ry’s arms slid gently up her back as he pulled her to him in a hug. His strong hands patted and then caressed her back in circular motions.
“You’ll help me?” she mumbled into his chest.
The hands stopped moving. “No.”
Giselle sighed then wiggled her hands around to the front of her skirt.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“You’ll see. Well, you won’t see…just wait. Give me your hand.”
“What are you going to do to it?” he asked in a suspicious tone.
“Just do it.”
His hand moved and came around in front of her. She grasped it and turned it up. Then she placed the photos on the palm. “Take them.”
“I’m not helping you with your investigation.”
“I know, but it was worth a shot. I’m not really a blackmailer,” she said. “Well, maybe I am, but I lack follow-through.”
Was that a kiss on the top of her head? Probably wishful thinking.
“The worst part of this is when I’m fired I’m going to have to tell my parents. My father will be uninterested, as usual. My mother will be disappointed. Also, as usual. She was disappointed when I took the job to begin with, and she’ll be disappointed when I’m fired. Just one more event in a long line of disappointments for my mother.”
“Aw, sugar. It’ll be okay.” He patted her back.
“No, it won’t.” Giselle couldn’t seem to stop herself from babbling. Her voice got that choked quality. She hated when it did that. She shouldn’t keep going or she would break down completely.
“My mother is going to get such a look on her face. It’ll be just like the time I got kicked out of the ballet class she enrolled me in. Her little Giselle just couldn’t pirouette. I fell flat on my face and went splat. I’m not kidding. I actually made a splat sound when I landed. It was so humiliating, it was…” Her voice sort of petered out to a forlorn stop.
“Damn it. Don’t do that. I can’t see a blasted thing in here, but I can feel you getting teary.”
“What’s it to you?” She pouted.
“Because if you don’t stop, I’m going to have to kiss you.”
She was silent for a heartbeat. “Okay,” Giselle said. A kiss might make everything okay. More silence. Just when she thought he wouldn’t do anything, Ry’s mouth came down and over hers, a warm, delicious cover. She pressed into him and he leaned back against the closet door.
She felt the light stubble on his cheek scrape her skin as he deepened the kiss. His lips sent a tingling through her from head to foot, but especially in her core. Giselle couldn’t resist exploring his body, running her hands caressingly up his jeans-covered thighs, over his hips and then underneath his t-shirt. She felt one, two, three… There were at least six packs on his abdomen and his chest wasn’t bad either. In fact, it felt firm and muscular. Only a sprinkling of hair.
She groaned. His hand caressed upward along her lower back on the inside of her peasant blouse. A throbbing beat inside her.
His hands left her breasts and explored downward to the hem of her skirt. He pulled it up and clutched at her behind, enjoying a frolic on the trunk of her vehicle. She hoped he didn’t think there was too much junk there. Uh-oh. Apparently not. His tongue entered her mouth and began to play a little hide and seek with hers.
How big was this closet anyway? Maybe big enough? No. She wasn’t going to go there on her not-even-first date. No. Maybe? Definitely and firmly no. But he was so incredibly scrumptious, especially when Giselle tasted him. She’d never felt so much desire for a man so quickly. There was no explanation. Zero to horny in ten seconds.
What did he feel? He couldn’t feel anything more than physical attraction. Even that wasn’t something he wanted, judging by their last few meetings. But as she stood there in his arms, Giselle admitted to herself that her feelings for this man went beyond the physical. Impossible but true.
Something in her recognized something in him. It was wondrous. It was terrifying. Better to keep things strictly on the surface, strictly in the physical realm. She could handle that. Barely. In fact, she couldn’t afford an attraction that was a distraction from everything she had to do.
She should pull away now. She would pull away now. Well, maybe in a minute.
Before she could pull herself away from the temptation of Ry, the door to the closet opened. The two of them tumbled out and onto the floor of the hallway in front of a startled waiter. Giselle ended up lying on top of Ry like a very slutty blanket.
Gazing up at the waiter who stared at them goggle-eyed.
“I thought it was the ladies’ room,” Giselle said.
“I thought it was the ladies’ room,” Ry said.
Giselle glared down at him and then jumped up via a sternly placed elbow to his stomach.
“Oooof.” Ry got up more slowly.
“You all go back to what you were doin’. I’m just gettin’ something to clean up a spill,” the waiter said.
Giselle retrieved her purse and camera from the closet floor. “Urmmmm,” she mumbled, embarrassed, and started down the narrow hall. Ry followed just behind. She could feel him over her shoulder, smirking. She refused to look. He just had that smirky vibe coming off him as if he knew she thought he was God’s gift. It was enough to make the little hairs stand up on her neck. As she continued through the restaurant, she could feel Ry at her back. Which way was the way out?
“Do you need some help with the direction to the front door?” His voice mocked her.
“No.”
She stumbled across the front door by accident and turned in triumph to gloat at Ry with a scathing comment. The rat wasn’t behind her. Ry had disappeared from sight.
Giselle opened the restaurant door and noted that while she had been inside, daylight had turned to dusk. She stood nonchalantly by the front door. She would just enjoy the ambiance of a slowly setting sun for a moment. Okay, it was blatantly obvious that she was waiting for Ry. But he didn’t come out. Well, she wouldn’t wait for Mr. Ry Leland any longer, so she huffed to herself and walked through the parking lot toward the street. As she reached the sidewalk, about ten feet from the curb, she heard a yell.
“Giselle.”
She looked back to see Ry at the restaurant door.
“Wait,” he called to her.
Maybe she would and maybe she wouldn’t. To wait or not to wait. That was the question. Whether it was nobler to play it cool and suffer… Before Giselle could finish the really atrocious take-off on Shakespeare in her head, a dark sedan came squealing out of nowhere and up onto the sidewalk in front of her. The careening car missed clipping her by the width of a sand gnat. The car returned to the roadway and accelerated away through the intersection, turning left, its tires squealing. The scent of burning rubber filled the air.
The car would have hit her if she hadn’t leaped out of its way with, a ballerina-like, grand jeté. The leap might have been more reminiscent of the lumbering, clumsy movement of a startled moose, but she would claim to anyone who hadn’t actually seen the incident, the leap was like a ballerina. However, unlike a ballerina, she ended up falling to her knees and rolling to an ungraceful stop on the sidewalk.
Dazed, she forced her eyes open. Ry crouched on his knees beside her.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Giselle gazed up into those beauteous eyes, now wide with concern for her. A pulse in his jaw where he unclenched and clenched his teeth. He ran his hands over her legs. But his tou
ch was impersonal. No doubt he was checking for breaks. No sexual harassment intended. Dammit.
She sat up with stiff, jerky movements. “I told you I flunked ballet class.” She forced a weak smile.
Ry helped Giselle to her feet. They bent together to examine her knees. One knee was skinned raw and bloody. Ry returned to his full height and faced her with a serious expression.
He shook his head. “You’re all right.”
“Yeah, but I think the camera is a goner.” Giselle pointed to the sidewalk a few feet away where the Polaroid, which had fallen from her purse, now lay smashed in two large chunks and countless small bits. Willie would probably dock her pay for the cost of a replacement.
“Better camera parts than body parts.” Ry gazed in the direction taken by the almost-hit-and-run vehicle. “I think someone just tried to kill you.” His announcement echoed ominously in her ears.
It was Saturday at 6:05 p.m. Giselle still had no ghost. On the upside, she’d made progress. Someone had tried to kill her. That was progress. Things had gotten progressively worse.
A Girl, a Guy and a Ghost: Chapter Four
Shock hit Giselle. She shuddered with the realization that the threat that had been left at the B&B was not a joke. Now she knew what the “or else” meant.
After the near hit-and-run, she’d agreed to go with Ry to his place, which turned out to be a four-story, eighteen-fifties, Italianate-style row house just a few blocks away. Giselle knew there had been a brief drive in Ry’s Jeep, but she wouldn’t have been able to retrace the path they took. Ry pulled into a garage from the lane and the two of them entered the house through the back door directly into the kitchen.
Ry deposited Giselle in a high-backed wood chair, next to the table at the center of the room, before going off to gather first-aid supplies.
Giselle perched there on the edge of the seat, unmoving. Her knee began to throb. Was that a good thing? Maybe it meant that the numbness of shock was wearing off. On the other hand, numbness was preferable to pain.
Ry soon returned and knelt in front of her. Giselle looked down onto the top of his silky wheat-colored hair while he cleansed her scraped and bloody knee with soothingly warm water. The muscles of his back flexed against the tightness of the shirt as he moved.