Surprisingly, she had agreed and Justin wondered if that was Tim’s influence on their boss. He also wondered what his friend had told Mia about the night before, but he supposed that, in the end, it didn’t matter. Whatever Tim had said, it had been enough to get Mia to agree to his request. She had agreed to transfer Justin’s other cases to Josh Winston and Kendra Huntwell in order to free up his time. The case Josh had been working on had wrapped up unexpectedly the previous day, so the other man had some free time. As for Kendra, she had just returned from vacation and hadn’t been assigned any new cases yet.
Mia had also offered to send fellow investigator Reed Talbot to Rosewood to search for any enchanted objects that might be hidden from their normal means of detection. Justin had agreed that might be a good idea and Mia had promised that both Reed and Callie Hughes, who was still in training, would be at the house that afternoon to investigate. Satisfied with the compromise, Justin had hung up, but not before promising Mia that he would report back in around noon, even if he hadn’t really learned anything.
Now, gathering his courage, Justin pushed open the front door of Rosewood and was immediately swamped by the same emotions as last night. If anything, they were even more overpowering in the light of day. His head spun and for a moment, it took all of his energy to remember who he was and what he was doing at the house.
“I didn’t realize you would return so soon, though I can’t say I’m disappointed.” Rose appeared at the top of the stairs and slowly made her way towards him. “It’s good to see you again, Justin.”
He could tell by her slight hesitation that she’d wanted to call him James, but had refrained. He offered her a small smile in return. It was all he could give her without revealing that from the moment he saw her on the stairs, he’d wanted nothing more than to have her in his bed. Immediately. It was the same curious sensation that he’d battled all of last night and he knew that he had to curb it.
“I promised I’d come back, Rose.”
She gave him a sad smile. “You always did keep your promises.” Coming to stand in front of him, she searched his face, though Justin had no idea what she was looking for. When he quirked an eyebrow and gave her a questioning look, she sighed and looked away.
“Please understand that this is difficult for me.” She moved back towards the living room, her quiet footfalls so soft that Justin wasn’t even sure he really heard them.
He trailed after her, unwilling to allow her to walk away and half afraid she would disappear into the attic if he didn’t keep her in his sights. He hadn’t seen her vanishing act in person, but she’d assured him last night that she was capable of it.
“You think this is easy for me?’ he asked when Rose had finally settled onto the couch. “You think I like feeling this way when I step into this house?”
“What way?” Rose asked, clearly confused. “You didn’t say anything last night.”
Forcing back the sharp retort, Justin merely growled and he wasn’t sure where the sudden burst of anger had come from. “The visions, remember? You think those are normal? I have news for you, Rosie; they’re not!”
Rose blinked as if she’d been physically slapped. “I didn’t think they were.”
“Then why did you ask?’ Justin could feel his temper start to rise and shook his head, willing himself to calm down. “Damn this house. This isn’t who I am.” He looked at Rose again. “I’m not like this. This house plays with my head, like something else is trying to get inside my mind. I’m sorry.”
“James was patient with me, never harsh or unkind.” Her words were like a cold dose of water to the face for Justin. Rose, however, clasped her hands in front of her and waited for his response. Getting none, she sighed and then continued as if the awkward pause had never happened. “It was, perhaps, the one side of him that I adored the most.”
Flopping down into a chair himself, Justin pushed his hands through his hair. “I’m not doing this right. I came here to talk to you, not argue with you.”
At first Rose didn’t say anything. Then she tucked her feet up underneath her and appeared to settle into the couch a bit more comfortably. “Then let us agree not to argue. Let’s agree that whatever this is, it’s not normal and neither of us are feeling like ourselves.”
“Agreed,” Justin nodded, slouching down in his own chair and regarding Rose thoughtfully. “Let’s take turns answering each other’s questions because I’m sure you have as many as I do. Since you’re the woman, you go first.”
Justin hadn’t meant his words to sound so much like a command and normally he wasn’t so blunt, but the words had somehow slipped out, almost as if he were someone else. Rather than be offended however, Rose just gave him that same serene smile.
“In that, you sound like my James,” she said with a smile in her voice. “That’s how he often was, demanding and confident. I never did mind that side of him so much, especially at night.”
“About that…” Justin began but Rose held up her hand.
“Ladies first, remember?”
Scowling a bit, Justin nodded in agreement and Rose regarded him thoughtfully a moment before seeming to decide on her first question.
“What happens to you when you walk into this house?” she finally asked, her head tilting as if she were a cat studying a bird it wished to catch. “What do you feel or see? You said that this wasn’t completely your normal behavior. How so?”
Justin took his time in answering, trying to get the words just right. “I’m normally a pretty easy going, mild mannered guy. Sure, I stand up for myself when I have to, mostly with my boss, Mia. But the anger? That’s not me. At least not anymore. I worked to control that when I was a kid.”
“But that anger is in you?” Rose seemed to already know the answer to her own question.
“Sure, but I can manage it, at least most of the time. When I’m in this house, though, it’s as if I never learned to control that anger and it slips out. Afterwards, I feel bad, but the damage is already done.”
Rose regarded him with those unblinking silvery eyes. “Very unlike James. There was no anger in him, or at least not that he showed me. He may have raised his voice to others, but I never saw that side of him.” She was quiet for a moment before continuing, her voice soft and wistful. “He was the perfect lover and husband.”
“Given how different we are, then, you accept that I’m not James? Or at least, not exactly the same guy?” Justin had the sense that Rose wasn’t quite finished with her question, but it was his turn.
Rose nodded. “I believe that your spirit is the same, that your essence, I suppose you could say, is that of my late husband, but that you are not exactly the same person. There are significant changes in you, vast differences that I cannot account for, but sometimes that occurs when a spirit is reborn many times. It is rare, but I do know that it happens.” She bit her lip and Justin found it more than a little endearing. “Last night when I saw you, it was as if time stopped and then reversed. I hadn’t seen you, or rather James, in so long. It was as if he and I had never been apart.”
She studied the floor, unable to meet Justin’s piercing gaze. “All these years I have waited for my husband’s return, prayed that one day his spirit would sense that I was still here and return for me. I trusted in fate to bring him back to me when the time was right.”
Finally, she looked up and he saw tears shimmering in her eyes. “It never occurred to me that you, or rather James, wouldn’t remember me as I remembered him. Reuniting with James and moving on to the Other Side with him has been my only focus, my only goal, since the day I awoke in this house.”
Something deep inside Justin twisted and he felt his heart squeeze. What would it be like, he wondered, if you lost the love of your life and when you found them again, they didn’t remember you? He couldn’t even begin to comprehend it, but he suspected it would be like dying a little bit all over again. The misery reflected in Rose’s eyes confirmed his suspicion.
C
rossing the room to sit beside her, Justin reached out to grasp her hand and felt alternating waves of hot and cold wash over him. His first instinct was to pull away since logically people weren’t supposed to be able to touch ghosts, but he held on, gripping her hand tighter, even though that only fed his desire to have her – a desire he’d thus far been able to control.
Whatever Rose was, she was clearly something none of them had ever encountered before. Not to mention that the longer he touched her the less intense the sensations assaulting his nerves became until it felt like nothing more than gentle waves lapping at his skin. That was something he could deal with.
Rose studied their linked hands, as if not quite able to believe that she was touching a living, breathing person.
“I’m sorry,” Justin finally managed, knowing it was inadequate, at best. “I don’t know what else to say.”
She shook her head. “It is not your fault. It is the way the universe works. After all this time, I know that, yet I still held on to foolish hope.”
“I don’t understand, but I want to,” he assured her, still not letting go of her hand. “Tell me what you know. Help me to understand.”
Rose bit her lip, something else that Justin found endearing. He wondered what it would be like to kiss her, if he would feel the immediate rush of the strange hot and cold sensation again.
“I’m not sure I completely understand it myself,” she confessed, “but my grandfather has explained at least some of it.” She shifted on the couch to face him, though she never let go of his hand.
“When we die, our spirit separates from our body and we cross over to the Other Side. I assume you know that.” However, she gave him a questioning look that said she wasn’t sure at all. However, when he nodded, she continued. “If we die before what fate has determined is ‘our time’ or have unfinished business, our spirits remain Earth-bound until that business is concluded. You make your living searching for proof of that.”
Again Justin nodded. “Not to mention demons and other things, but essentially, yes. That’s more or less what I spend my life looking for.”
Rose gave him an odd look but continued. “Then there are those spirits who live and die as they should, but they do not fulfill their destinies during their living years. They’re usually linked to at least one other spirit, sometimes more. They simply die and are reborn until whatever task is key to their essence is completed. However, each time, they return to the world of the living slightly different than before, as the universe changes things to give the spirit another chance.”
“Sort of like testing a new piece of equipment,” Justin supplied. “You make it and then see if it works. If it doesn’t, you bring it back to the shop, tinker with it, make changes, and then try it again, but it’s essentially the same piece of equipment. There are just minor differences.”
She mulled that over for a minute. “More or less, I suppose that is correct. Only in living beings, those ‘minor differences’ that you refer to can sometimes make a big change in the life of a reborn spirit. Maybe the town where they are born is different. It’s one small thing, but if, say, they are born into poverty, then that significantly changes them, particularly if they were wealthy in the last life.”
“That’s what happened to me, isn’t it?” Justin asked, instinctively already knowing the answer. He had known it on some level since he had walked through the door and felt his very personality begin to change. “James died and he was reborn as me. That’s why I feel so odd when I walk into this house. It’s why I act the way I do when I’m here. Some parts of the person I used to be are still here. Since I’m essentially the same spirit, those little leftover pieces affect me.”
She nodded. “My grandfather and I believe so, yes. We discussed it last night after you left. You died and were reborn, but parts of you or perhaps even bits of your spiritual essence, were left behind in this house. That may account for the anger in you that my husband never possessed. I believe the same thing happened to Tim. He died in this house that night as well. That is why this house affects him too and begins to change him into the cold, remote Jonah that I remember so well.”
Rose was silent for a moment before looking up to met Justin’s gaze, as if she already knew the question he was about to ask next. “We do not know what happened to Margaret, though we can only assume that she died and was reborn as well. Why none of us can see her face or remember what she looked like is still a mystery, but one that we believe we will solve in time. She is part of this, just as much as you and Tim are.”
“So what are you, Rose?” It was the one question Justin had been burning to ask ever since last night. “Where do you fit in to the spirit world?”
Rose shrugged, as if she were apathetic, but maybe, Justin decided, she’d long ago come to the conclusion that it didn’t really matter. It mattered to him however and he wanted to know if she had an answer.
“I’m not sure that I do. As far as my grandfather and I can tell, I exist in a realm that lies between both the living and the dead. It is a place few entities inhabit, some of whom do walk the earth as humans.” She looked away in shame. “The rest of us remain in this limbo as neither ghost nor human.”
Justin frowned, not liking that somehow Rose thought of herself as a lesser being. “That’s sort of what Tim said last night when we first came here. He couldn’t get a read on you and Tim is probably one of the most talented psychics in the business.” He waved his hand around the room, feeling that uncontrollable anger start to swell in him again and worked to tamp it down once more. “But why? How did it happen?”
Justin moved to jump up from the couch but Rose stilled him by laying a cool hand on his arm and he froze in place at the contact. If Justin thought holding hands was a unique experience, then there were no words for what he was experiencing now. It was as if his blood boiled at the same time that it froze in his veins. It was a stunning contradiction but there was no other way to describe it.
He could also feel himself getting hard, his erection almost painful, and knew that he had to get better control over his body. Ghost sex was not possible, no matter how much he might want it. His brain told him that as soon as he left Rosewood today, he should seek out Merri Finegold and work out his sexual frustrations with her. His heart, however, wouldn’t allow him to betray Rose that way.
It was damn frustrating and only served to feed his anger even more. Rose was the one he wanted and no one else. It nearly enraged him that he couldn’t have her. He wanted to hit something or hurt someone and those feelings scared him. Normally, Justin wasn’t prone to violence. Now, however, the idea of injuring something with his bare hands was quite appealing.
He tried to remind himself that he was Justin, not James, and that Rose wasn’t his wife. He was free to be with as many women as he wanted. At the moment, though, it wasn’t working. He couldn’t tell where he ended and James began. The longer he was here, the worse those feelings became and the more he had to struggle to maintain his composure.
Steeling himself, Justin glanced at Rose and knew that a mix of raw desire, anger and fear was clearly evident on his face. Rose, however, didn’t appear frightened at all. Instead, she merely stared at him until Justin felt his anger begin to slowly ebb away, as if they had never been.
“How did you do that?’ he was finally able to ask once he felt calm enough to trust his voice. “It’s like the anger just drained away. It’s still there, inside me, but not like it was before.”
Rose shrugged. “I’m not sure. It’s something Margaret told me to try. She said that when two souls were perfectly matched like ours were, a look could often calm even the most violent of rages.” Rose frowned, as if something was bothering her, but she brushed it aside.
“It sounds as if Margaret was a smart woman,” he offered, unsure how he felt about what Rose had just done. Margaret’s advice was apparently sound but it also conflicted, just a bit, with how Rose had described James, even though she didn’t seem t
o realize it. If the saintly former husband was so calm and cool, why had Margaret felt the need to teach Rose how to calm someone down. Pushing the thought aside for later examination, he turned his attention back to the ghost across from him.
A wistful look stole across Rose’s face when she sensed Justin watching her. “She was a good woman and would have been an even better friend. I wish I could have known her better. Even more, I wish I could remember what she looked like.” Justin was going to ask her what she meant, but Rose rushed on. “However, you asked me earlier what happened.”
Struggling to bring himself back to the present, Justin nodded. “I do want to know. Maybe that’s the answer to getting our client out of the hospital and helping you move on to the Other Side.”
Rose frowned at the mention of Sophia Hamlin, an odd sensation niggling at the back of her mind, but allowed the comment to pass. “I do believe it is the key to solving the mystery that surrounds this house. However, I have no answers because I don’t know what happened. Neither does my grandfather.”
“He mentioned as much last night,” Justin grumbled. “I just hoped that he was wrong. What do you remember, if anything?”
Rising, Rose began to pace the room. “I remember that morning quite well and into the afternoon, too. It was a typical day. We awakened early and made love, as we were trying desperately to have a baby.”
Once again, Justin beat back the rising tide of desire that threatened to overwhelm the rational part of his mind. “Yeah, I, uh, sort of saw that part,” he confessed. “In the hallway last night I remembered things that I had never done, including some with you.”
Crossing back to the couch, Rose held out her hands and helped Justin to his feet. In just a short amount of time, he was growing used to the clashing sensations that assailed him every time they touched and they no longer shocked him the way they had only moments earlier.
“We have never been shy about sharing our bodies, my love.” Rose winced as the endearment slipped out, but Justin didn’t correct her. Instead, he found that he was beginning to enjoy the quirky way she talked. “We made love wherever the mood struck, even if it was not practical or convenient.”
Ghosts Of Lovers Past Page 4