by Meg Ripley
There was such a big difference between a woman like Samantha and a woman like Stacy. Samantha was stunning, but she hadn’t even tried to use her looks to get her job with Cameron. Instead, she’d sat down and talked with him like a real person. As far as he could tell, she wasn’t trying to make herself sound better just to impress him. She cared about Andy even before she’d met him, and Cameron was sure that those feelings had only swelled. If her employment didn’t work out, he would be surprised.
“I see you must agree with me,” Stacy purred, jolting him away from his reverie.
“What?”
“You were smiling. You must understand my point. I’m happy to work any extra hours that you need, even if it’s late at night.” Stacy touched her tongue to the underside of her upper lip suggestively.
The smile faded instantly from Cameron’s face. “No, Stacy. The role is staying the way it is. If you don’t like it, then I’ll arrange for a different actress to fill it.”
She crossed her arms and huffed at him. “I’ll talk to my agent about this.”
“Go right ahead, because he’ll agree with me. Even if he doesn’t, I’m not changing the script just so you can advance your career. That’s not how this works, and I have better things to do. I’ll see you on the set.” He marched around his desk and opened the door.
Stacy let out an exaggerated sigh before she got up and wiggled out of the room.
When the outer door shut behind the actress, Eileen gave him a knowing look. “That must have gone well.”
“We’ll see. You might be calling the casting director to find me a new Second Woman in the Café.” He smiled and shut his office door.
The rest of the day went much better, although Cameron couldn’t keep his mind off of Samantha and Andy. He knew there was plenty of work to be done and that he should get through it as quickly as possible so as not to blow the production budget, but by five o’clock, he couldn’t concentrate anymore. His stomach was rumbling, and every time the camera loader slapped the clapboard, he realized he hadn’t been paying attention.
“Cut!” called his director.
Cameron clapped. “Good enough for today, folks. Let’s make it an early one and go home.”
As he pulled up in the driveway and pushed the button to open the garage door, he hoped Samantha wouldn’t think he was coming home just to check up on her. As soon as the thought occurred to him, he wanted to kick himself. It was his house, damn it! He didn’t need to worry so much about what she thought.
The door from the garage led into the kitchen, and he walked in to find Samantha standing at the stove. She wore an oversized white button-down shirt with shoulder pads and navy stirrup pants that complimented her long legs. Her hips swayed lightly to the latest U2 song on the radio, and the delicious smell of whatever she was cooking tantalized Cameron as soon as he came in.
Andy was sitting at the kitchen table, swinging his legs as he colored. The entire scenario was one that spoke of home and comfort, and Cameron knew he wouldn’t have stayed at work even as long as he had if he’d known what was waiting for him. “Hi, Daddy!”
Samantha looked up in surprise when he walked in, her blue eyes darkened by the color of her outfit. “Oh! You’re home!”
As she spoke, Cameron realized what a jerk he’d been. This wasn’t one of the days on the schedule when he was supposed to be home for dinner. “Um, yeah. Sorry. Things wrapped up a little early.”
“Well, you’re just in time. The chicken parmesan is almost done, and I have some green beans and garlic bread to go with it.” Samantha grabbed a pot holder from the drawer and bent down to check the contents of the oven.
Cameron purposely looked away, not certain he could control himself if he indulged. “I know you weren’t expecting me, though. I can just make a sandwich or something.”
“Don’t be silly.” Samantha retrieved the pan of chicken from the oven and set it on a trivet. “I cooked enough for all three of us. I figured even if you weren’t going to be here, at least you would have something you could warm up and eat later.”
“That was…very thoughtful of you.” Cameron stood just inside the door, feeling awkward and out of place. He was also blown away by how easily Samantha was becoming a part of the household. Making extra food was the kind of thing Welda used to do for him, but that was because she was more of a grandmother than anything. “You, um, you don’t even have to cook if you don’t want to. There are quite a few places that deliver, and you can use one of the cars in the garage anytime you’d like. I should have told you that.”
“I appreciate it, but I like to cook. Andy helped, too. Isn’t that right?” She turned to the boy, her fluffy curls brushing against her shoulders.
Cameron clenched his fingers together to stop himself from reaching out and touching them. What was it about this woman that enticed him so much? And she was his employee! He couldn’t be thinking about her like this. What would happen if he got involved with her and things didn’t work out? He’d be back at square one, and poor Andy would be the one who suffered.
“I p-pounded de chicken!” his son volunteered from the table, stopping Cameron from carrying his fantasy too far.
“That’s great. Samantha, what can I do to help?” Cameron turned to the sink and washed his hands. He needed something to keep himself busy.
“Andy, did you put the napkins and the silverware on the table already?”
“Yep!”
“Then I think we’re all good to go. I’ll dish up the plates.”
Cameron turned to Samantha just in time to see her smiling to herself as she retrieved the plates from the cabinet and began filling them up. It was at that moment that Cameron knew exactly what separated her from the other women he’d met. She wasn’t just attractive; she was warm and caring. She wanted so much for everyone else, even people she hardly knew. He had to wonder what she wanted for herself.
Samantha handed a plate to Andy. “Set that at your father’s place, please.”
“Everything looks and smells wonderful,” Cameron said, not wanting to just stand around in the kitchen watching her. “I didn’t realize I was getting a cook as well as a nanny.” He chuckled lightly.
Samantha didn’t respond. She stood in front of the stove with a plate in one hand and the serving spoon in the other, but her grip slowly slacked on the spoon and it fell back into the green beans with a splash. Her gaze was fixed in the distance, as if she was looking straight through the wall behind the stove.
“Samantha?” Cameron took a hesitant step forward.
She didn’t respond, but her lips parted slightly and the plate began to slip from her hand.
Cameron’s reflexes were quick and automatic, and the plate was in his hand as soon as it left her fingertips. He set it on the counter and dared to touch her shoulder. “Samantha?”
She jumped and turned to him with fear in her eyes, taking a step backward and raising her hand. Her eyes cleared as she stared at him, and Cameron could see the moment when recognition flickered in them. “I’m sorry.”
“What happened? Are you okay?”
Tears welled up, threatening to spill over her eyelashes, but she blinked them away and gave him a forced smile. “Of course. I just have a headache. Don’t mind me.”
“There’s some Tylenol in the cabinet.” He reached for the door in question.
“It’s okay. Really. It’ll go away. Let’s eat.” She smiled at him again, but it faded as she turned to the green beans and resumed serving the food.
Cameron sat at the dining table a minute later, wondering what he’d missed. Everything seemed fine, and then all of a sudden it wasn’t. Samantha didn’t seem like she wanted to talk about it, and as long as it wasn’t anything that affected Andy, Cameron had no right to ask. Still, he was desperate to know what was going on inside her mind. He watched her carefully as he cut into his chicken. “Tell me about your day, Andy.”
“It was gweat! We went to de pawk, and Ms. Pa
wka went down de s-swide wit me!” Andy’s face was alight with excitement. It was clear he’d bonded with his new caregiver already.
“Did she now? That’s nice.”
“And we pwayed Candy Wand!”
“Candy Land? How wonderful. And did you behave yourself? You didn’t give her any trouble at all, did you?”
Andy’s face fell suddenly, and he looked uncertainly between his nanny and his father. “I w-wied about w-w-washing my h-hands.”
“That’s not nice, Andy. Ms. Parker deserves more from you than that.” While Cameron didn’t like the fact that his son had lied, he would consider it a good day if that was the only trouble he’d caused during his first day with a new nanny.
Samantha looked up, speaking for the first time since they’d been seated. “We had a long talk about honesty,” she said quietly. “And we also talked about how important it is to get those nasty germs off our hands. But then we moved past it and got on with our day, didn’t we, Andy?”
The forlorn look in his eyes dissipated, and he smiled at her. “Yep!”
“Good. This chicken is delicious, by the way. If you keep cooking like this, then I might come home more often.” Cameron could cook a few things himself, but he only had a handful of recipes he’d managed to master since Tess had been gone. It was wonderful to have a homecooked meal that he hadn’t made.
“Weawwy, Daddy?” Andy was practically bouncing in his seat.
Shit. He shouldn’t have said that, but the thought had been a sincere one that’d come out on its own. The food really was good, and in spite of whatever was going on with Samantha, it made him want to spend more time right there in the dining room with these two people.
“Thank you,” was Samantha’s only reply before delicately placing a green bean in her mouth.
Cameron concentrated on his food instead of conversation after that, determined not to say anything else that would make more trouble.
Chapter Six
The battle had been raging for days. The bodies of the dead littered the ground, the grass tinted red from all the blood. Somehow, more soldiers continued to come. Samantha had seen them more clearly as she clung to the back of her mount. There were humans, big beastly men with long beards and raging eyes. Some of them were human women, but their long legs and fierce cries denoted them as being something more, like Amazons. Then there were the beasts with long fangs and pointed, furry ears, not quite wolf or humanoid. These were only half as frightening as the elven people, who screamed their hatred in a high-pitched tone that threatened to shatter Samantha’s bones.
She didn’t want to be back there, listening to the clash of weapons and the death howls of those around her. Nobody was winning, and she wasn’t sure what any of them were fighting for in the first place. Samantha looked around desperately for an escape route, but the army crushed around her. Only the solid horse underneath her kept her from being trampled, but it wasn’t much of a respite. The beast lurched and surged underneath her, its eyes rolling in fear as sweat gathered around the bridle.
The shadowed figure was behind her this time, its spindly hands gripping at her shirt to keep her in place. Samantha tried to pull away, not caring about modesty. If ripped clothing was what it took to get out of there, then she would run naked through the field if need be. But the fabric of her dress refused to cooperate, keeping her in place as the figure hissed in her ear.
“You have to fight!” it growled, the sound sending shivers down her spine and causing her stomach to lurch up toward her throat. “You must fight for me!”
“I don’t want to fight!” Samantha sobbed. “I don’t even know what we’re fighting for!”
“Inside! You are the warrior! You fight! Fight for me!” Its nails dug into the skin of her back, searing her flesh with pain.
“No! I’m not fighting for you!” She tried to pull away from him once again.
As she did so, a massive creature swooped down from the sky. A ripple of awe and perhaps fear cascaded through the violent crowd, pausing their swords in the air and causing their grips on their shields to slacken ever so slightly.
Samantha’s legs tightened on her horse as she crouched down in fear, causing the creature to hop nervously beneath her as the beast in the sky tipped its wings back and paused right above her. Samantha’s heart squeezed so hard, it hurt as she slowly looked up.
While there was nothing about this battle that seemed familiar to Samantha, she recognized what she was looking at. This was a dragon, a brilliant crimson one, and she’d seen it previously in another vision. It had only swooped by before, but this time, it remained in the air directly above her head, its wings sending great rushes of hot air over the army. Samantha traced her eyes along the thick brown talons that could gut her in an instant, up the powerful body covered in ruddy scales, and finally to a set of deep brown eyes that gazed right back at her. A deep rumble emitted from its body, a vibration that carried through the air and into Samantha. It was terrifying, something she’d never experienced before, and yet there was more calmness and serenity in that tone than in anything else around her.
The shadowy figure that brought her there apparently didn’t agree. He was more upset than anyone at the dragon’s arrival. It screamed incoherently behind Samantha. As he did, a pounding pain built up inside her head until her brain throbbed against the inside of her skull. She clamped her hands to her temples and bent forward over her horse’s neck, the contents of her stomach threatening to join the mix of blood and dirt below.
The dragon’s attention turned to the creature behind Samantha, and the rumble emitting from it changed in pitch. The shadow grew even more agitated, now standing on the back of the horse and reaching with its clawed hand in the air as though it could snag the dragon out of the sky. Its fingers dug into Samantha’s shoulders, and its feet created gaping wounds in the horse’s rump that dripped brilliant red blood.
This was too much. It was all too much. Samantha closed her eyes and clung to the horse’s neck.
She fell back into her body with a thump. In the dim light, the room around her was foreign and discomforting. She searched her mind for the day of the week, her name, anything that would help her understand where she was and what was going on. Slowly, reality made itself clear in her brain once again. She was at home, or at least what she called home now. It was a beautiful room in Cameron’s house, but the beauty of it couldn’t keep out these terrible spirits.
Breathing heavily, Samantha cast aside the heavy covers. She was always so cold, something she’d attributed to the spirits that followed her around, and that hadn’t changed despite the warmer climate she was now living in. She still wore far more clothing than everyone around her.
At first, Samantha was pleased to find that the spirits bothered her far less there. They were completely silent from the moment she landed at the airport, and the first few weeks had been the calmest she’d ever had. Even finding herself suddenly thrust into a new job that she hadn’t expected to find so suddenly had been a pleasant thing that kept her mind off the troubles of her past.
She’d thought the incident in the kitchen had been an isolated one. There was something so comforting and homey about cooking for her new charge and his father, and she thought everything was on the uphill climb. But that shadowy spirit that haunted her had found her once again, and it was trying to burrow its way into her conscious mind, even when she was awake. She’d found herself yanked out of reality and heading toward that battlefield again, one she didn’t understand or want to be a part of.
Samantha perched on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands, wondering why this was all happening again. Clearly something was trying to communicate with her. That was nothing new; she’d talked to many spirits in her lifetime. As a child, she’d even spoken to them out loud, not realizing that other people around her couldn’t seem them. But the shadow creature had been finding her more and more often over the past week, and now he was in her dreams every night.
>
She slowly lowered herself to the floor, bracing herself against the wall for a moment before heading across the room to the door. There was no chance of going back to sleep, not after that. She’d wasted too much time lying awake in bed and hoping to drift off again, and that made for an incredibly long night.
Instead, she made her way downstairs. Maybe a cup of tea and some time in front of the television would do her some good. Even in the dark, Cameron’s home was incredible. Samantha hadn’t gotten used to the massive paintings on the walls—most of them originals—or the expensive furniture. The irony of it hit her hard. She was living in a place that most people could only fantasize about, yet she was tortured nightly because of her ability.
She frowned to herself as she headed down the long staircase, wishing she could figure out what this spirit wanted from her. Samantha was willing to do almost anything for him if only it meant he would go away, but she wouldn’t fight. That was the only thing she’d understood from him: that he expected her to engage in battle and that he insisted she was some sort of warrior. How could she know that the other beings in her visions weren’t real people of some sort? She was there, and she was real. If the effect the dragon had on her was any indication, then it was real, too. Samantha wasn’t going to slay the spirit of some unknown being just to get herself out of trouble.
Samantha was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the kitchen light through the crack under the door. It was only when she stepped into the room and put up her hand to shield her eyes did she realize the kitchen was already occupied.
Cameron sat at the kitchen table, a notebook and several sheets of paper scattered in front of him. His hair was even more disheveled than usual, and he wore a blue t-shirt with pajama bottoms. He looked up in surprise. “Well, hello.”
She stood in the doorway, dumbfounded. “What are you doing up?”
His smile was brilliant, despite the late hour. “I could ask you the same thing.”