“It might be a ghost.” Now that she said it aloud, the ridiculousness of her suspicion made her hesitate and pull back.
“Have you heard this ghost before?”
“Well, no.”
“Why would it suddenly appear tonight?”
Lilliana swallowed, not sure his logic was helping her state of mind. Now, instead of fearful, she felt foolish. “One of my ancestors died brokenhearted and young in a fire. Her ghost is said to be wandering the house looking for her lover. Maybe she’s here because of you.”
“Why me?”
“Because … we’re … I’m mean, we’re not really lovers, but we have had sex.”
“Once.”
She chuffed and rolled her eyes, knowing he couldn’t see her. But nothing could keep the teenagelike sarcasm from infusing the words. “Yeah, right.”
He tensed against her, the white teeth no longer visible. The cry came once more, and she jerked.
“This is ridiculous,” he muttered and fumbled for the light switch. The single-bulbed fixture cast a hazy light around them, the far end of the hallway still in shadows. An elemental relief poured through her, muffling the clawing terror. Darkness was evil; light was good.
“I’m going to check the attic. Do you have a flashlight handy?”
“I have one in my room.”
She hesitated in the doorway, not wanting to step out of the light and into the darkness. Giving herself a mental pep talk, she skipped over to her bedside table and flipped the lamp on. With shaky hands, she riffled through the drawers, coming up with a black flashlight.
He led the way. Lilliana hadn’t been into the attic since shortly after she inherited the home. Her dream of finding expensive antiques or relics from the Civil War or even a box of real silverware had been dashed. She’d sifted through moldy, rotting curtains and rugs and sprung couches.
Alec pulled the cord. The groan of seldom-used hinges echoed into the dark space above. A tingle zinged down her spine, the hairs on the back of her neck standing at attention.
Alec was halfway up when she grabbed his upper thigh. He stopped and looked down. “What’s wrong?”
What was she supposed to say? She didn’t even believe in ghosts. Not really. Yet, an unnatural fear roared through her veins, pumping her blood hard and loud in her ears. Being alone was untenable. “I’m coming up too.”
“Fine.” He tossed the word down unworriedly, almost absentmindedly, continuing his climb upward, his body slowly engulfed in shadows. She followed him up, the weak beam of the flashlight acting like a lighthouse beacon.
While the light offered a certain measure of comfort, the unilluminated darkness seemed dense and heavy. Not caring what he thought, she grabbed his shirt and pressed close to his back, standing on tiptoe to peek over his shoulder.
He cast the light from one corner of the attic to the other. Two couches were piled on each other against the long wall, where the roof slanted down. An oblong floor mirror, tarnished and chipped, reflected light that blinded her for a split-second before moving on to a trunk set up on its end, lid cracked and hinges dangling uselessly. The dulled aluminum of an air duct reflected light, revealing a circular hinge hanging loose and a split between two joints, insulation fuzzing around the edges.
“You need to get that duct repaired. Have you started running heat yet?”
“Not yet,” she whispered, but he only hummed in response, the light bouncing back over the room.
The silence was unnerving. Only her too-fast, shallow breaths registered in her ears. The flashlight stopped its exploratory arc and focused on the far end where a small window, no more than two square feet let in a small amount of moonlight. Alec’s body was taut, and she tightened her hold on his shirt. Did he see something?
He cried out, his body jerking forward as if lassoed. Her already fraying nerves broke. She screamed and tried to pull him back with her, her feet slipping on the dusty floor.
The flashlight beam wavered across the room until he’d pinned her. His laughter stilled her frantic tugging. “Jesus, your face.”
She shoved at his arms, blind and furious. “Get that stupid light out of my eyes, jerk-wad. You terrified me.”
The light dropped, a circle around their feet, but enough permeated upward so Lilliana could see the grin on his face. “I’m sorry, but that was hilarious. Did you think your ghost had me in her clutches?”
His ploy had been adolescent, and so was his smile. She’d never seen him look so carefree. A different sort of nerves fluttered in her stomach. Weakly, she said, “Even barring the supernatural, we could fall through the flooring or something.”
He stomped a boot, rattling the uneven plywood. “Seems stable enough.”
“Here maybe, but—”
He shushed her, his finger up. “I heard something.”
“Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me—”
“Hush.” The word hissed through his teeth, his grin gone, his gaze tangling with hers, his face a picture of still concentration. He stomped his foot again.
The silence weighed on her, stretching so long she felt compelled to say something, anything. A low, throaty growl came at them from all directions. Her adrenaline surged, her heart tapping hard against her ribs. Yet, under the shot of fear, her mind searched. She’d heard that sound before.
He stomped again, and again the noise reverberated. He moved his finger to his lips and trekked farther into the attic, toward the old trunk, keeping the beam of light at his feet. Lilliana held onto the tail of his shirt and stepped exactly where he stepped.
“A-ha,” Alec whispered.
Lilliana shifted to his side. “Ghost,” she said on a huge exhale.
He waved a hand in front of her face. “Hello? It’s not a ghost. It’s a cat.”
Now it was her turn to laugh, relief giving her a high like stepping off a rollercoaster. “It’s a cat I’ve been trying to tame. I named it—her—Ghost.”
Considering a half-dozen squirming still-blind kittens fell over each other trying to reach the mother cat’s teats, Ghost was undeniably female. Her eyes glowed red in the beam of the flashlight. Lilliana crouched and crawled toward the little family, her hand outstretched. Ghost hissed, her ears flat.
“She’s scared. Let’s leave her for now,” he said.
“She looks too skinny, doesn’t she? Let me get her a can of food.” Lilliana carefully descended the ladder and made a run to the kitchen.
She was climbing back up in less than a minute, out of breath.
Alec pulled the top off and slid the can toward Ghost. The cat yowled, the cry melancholy and fearful and echoing through the split duct. Lilliana tugged Alec’s shirt, and they left her to eat without fear. He followed her into her room, clicking off the flashlight and handing it over.
She plopped on the bed and lay back, her legs dangling off the side, laughing softly. “What a night. I can’t believe the ruckus didn’t wake up Hunter.”
He joined her on the bed, tucking his hands behind his head and staring up at the gossamer fabric of the canopy. “My guess is this is the first warm, safe place he’s had to sleep in a while.”
An almost-healed strawberry discolored his elbow, an inch from her lips. Before she could embarrass herself more than she already had, she transferred her attention to his face. As if sensing her, he turned his head to face her. They stared into each other’s eyes so long, a knot wound itself tighter and tighter in her chest until she felt close to breaking. She had no idea whether or not he was going to kiss her or get up and walk out.
He did neither. Instead, he flipped off the lamp, lay back beside her and whispered, “Tell me a ghost story.”
The unexpectedness of the request jumbled her mind. “Which one?”
“Hancock House boasts more than one?”
A deep breath ordered her thoughts. “You mean poor Beatrice. It’s all very romantic and tragic.”
“Isn’t it always?” Sarcasm weighed his words.
&n
bsp; “Maybe so. She fell in love with a slave who was a hostler—”
“Hostler?”
“You know, like a stable boy. My ancestors bred horses at one time. Beatrice would sneak in and out of her room at night to be with her lover, and eventually she got pregnant.”
“I assume her parents weren’t very understanding.”
“They paid a free black woman who was rumored to be a witch to give her herbs to cast the baby out. Beatrice decided to run away with her stable boy instead. On the fateful night, something went wrong. A fight with her parents? A dropped lantern? No one remembers. One wing of the house caught on fire and Beatrice died.”
“Beatrice’s ghost wanders the halls looking for her stable boy? Did he commit suicide in true Shakespearean fashion?”
“Of course not. Aunt Esmerelda says he married a housemaid and they had a passel of kids.”
A few beats of silence passed before Alec said, “What an asshole.”
She giggled. When she heard his rumbling laughter, she rolled toward him and propped her head up on her elbow, tucking her legs on the bed. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark, and she could see the ease of his smile. Happiness looked good on him.
“You should laugh more.” The words popped out without her thinking of anything beyond the light in his eyes.
His laughter stopped like water dammed, yet his smile stayed in place. His heat seemed to travel across the space separating them, flushing her body.
“What were you doing up so late?” he asked.
“Talking to Edwin.”
“Who’s Edwin?” Suspicion wiped his smile away.
Her knee-jerk reaction was to tell him none of his business, but the quote permanently inked on his body came to mind. Like Ghost, she had to earn his trust because of past mistreatment.
“Don’t get your shorts in a wad. Edwin is a real man, but I haven’t actually met him. I was commissioned to paint his portrait.”
“Does he live in Falcon?”
“Nope. He’s some bigwig banker in upstate New York. A good friend of mine runs an art gallery in New York and funnels work my way. This painting will pay for the electrical upgrades.”
“I told you’d I’d help with those.” He turned to face her, mimicking her stance, his knees curling up and bumping hers. “If you hadn’t inherited this house, would you still be in New York?”
“I suppose, but New York City was hard. There are so many amazing artists, and I was never sure if my stuff measured up. Inheriting Hancock House felt like an opportunity. I didn’t realize what kind of state it was in, of course. I hadn’t been home in a long time. Too long. My father…” Her throat clogged. The weeks after her father’s death had been a confusing mish-mash of regret and longing and sadness. Why was she telling him this?
He skimmed callused fingertips down her forearm until his hand landed on top of hers. “Were the two of you close?”
Her unexpected tears eased and her throat opened, but her voice emerged reedy and tremulous. “Not really. But he’d been trying to get me home for a visit, said he wanted to spend time with me. I kept putting him off, too busy, too broke to fly home. Then one night, he wrapped his car around a tree, and my ‘someday soon’ was never going to happen.”
He squeezed her hand, his voice barely above a whisper. “Are you trying to fix Hancock House to appease your guilt?”
She pulled her hand from under his. “Hold it right there, Dr. Phil. One has nothing to do with the other.”
Even as she protested, his question arrowed into her chest. Was she working with such desperation on Hancock House out of guilt to the dead? At this point did it matter? She’d chosen her path.
He rolled to his back, scooching further onto the bed, leaving only his feet hanging off. “I don’t want to see you drown under the responsibility of his house. You’re too … vibrant.”
The compliment kept her balancing on a knife’s edge of emotions. Alec was alternately prickly and incisive and sweet. She cleared her throat, forcing a measure of tease in her voice. “What would you know about parental guilt, anyway? You and your parents were the perfect little family. The cameras loved them at the ballgames.”
His body stilled as if cast in bronze. She pushed up the bed beside him, poked him in the side, and continued hesitantly. “I heard they moved back to Jasper. You get up there to see them often?”
“I haven’t talked to them in a while.” A sad story lived behind his admission.
Instead of lecturing him or pressing him for more details like some gossip magazine, she reached out and brushed his shoulder with her fingertips. The muscle jerked under her hand, but he didn’t shrug her off, so she ran her hand farther down his arm to rest on his biceps. Ink extended beyond his shirtsleeve. She traced the dark swirls with a fingertip. Goose bumps broke over his arm, and he relaxed like a deflating balloon.
She curled up at his side, her hand sliding under the sleeve of his shirt to settle on the bare curve of his shoulder. She had no idea what time it was, but the moon was high. Now the adrenaline had worn off, the deep, even cadence of his breathing had her creeping steadily toward sleep.
Chapter 8
The beep of a watch jerked Alec out of his dream. Dawn signaled his workout time, but damn he was comfortable and warm. The threads of his dream unraveled quickly in the orangey light streaming through the windows, but Alec recalled a very naked Lilliana had played a starring role.
Fragments of the night before fit themselves together. He’d fallen asleep in Lilliana’s bed. Not only that, but sometime during the night, they’d changed positions, and lay lengthwise on the bed and covered by her comforting cedar-scented quilt.
This time they were face-to-face, her breasts pressed into his chest. The urge to repeat their one afternoon mistake grew his morning wood into Sequoia-like proportions.
Physical attraction. He was horny. That’s all this was.
Except, instead of getting off with a quickie, he wanted to spend the day in bed with her. He wanted to bring her to orgasm a half-dozen times, wanted to hear her chant his name. He wanted to coax her bra off and explore every bare inch of her. Even more, he wanted to talk and laugh with her.
Somehow, she had wiggled past his defenses. Maybe when she’d told him about her father. He’d heard the same regret in her voice that had been battling in the hollowness of his chest for weeks, months, years. He’d almost spilled his ugly truth.
He hadn’t spoken to his parents in three long years. He trashed their emails without reading them and deleted their phone messages before listening, but with every day that passed, the lines of his hatred blurred. His finger had hovered over the mouse ready to open their last email. The subject line had been WE MISS YOU. His mother, bless her heart, always typed in all-caps. It was one of those annoying, endearing things that had been chipping away at his wall.
He was getting older and so were they. What if he woke one day to the news one of them had died? More than anyone, Lilliana would have understood, yet he’d stayed silent. Old habits were hard to break¸ especially the destructive ones.
She stirred against him, her back rounding in a slight stretch that pressed her pelvis against his erection. He muttered a curse, foolish impulses denting his self-control.
With her eyes still closed, she rolled to her back and threw her arms above her head, her back arching this time. Her dark ponytail flowed over the white pillow. Before he could think, he inhaled close to the mass of waves. She smelled of southern summer flowers, magnolias and honeysuckle, an intoxicating combination. What did her skin smell like? What did she taste like?
Her face was turned away, her neck issuing an invitation. Her eyes remained closed, her breathing coming at regular intervals. He dropped his face to her neck, his lips a hairs-breadth from her skin, so close her woman-scented warmth sparked a fire in his chest. With each breath he took, with each pass of his lips, close but not touching her skin, the pressure in his chest grew, becoming almost a physical pain.
More than desire fed the ache, although that was certainly part of it. It was a melancholic longing for something he couldn’t name.
He slipped out of the bed without waking her. The hardest part had been peeling himself away from her body. The morning sun had risen over the horizon, soft light diffusing through the room. She stirred and let out a soft, innocent mewl. Her throaty moans the afternoon they’d had sex had been anything but innocent.
He eased out of her door. A bump at the other end of the hall whipped him around. Hunter stood in the middle of the hallway, his backpack slung over a shoulder, his shoes dangling from one hand, his eyes huge.
Aw, hell. Maybe the best way to handle this was not to mention anything. “Morning, Hunter. Let me grab my stuff and I’ll give you a lift to school.”
“I can walk.”
“Sure you can, but that won’t get you half a dozen ham biscuits.”
Alec’s self-centered blinders disintegrated under Hunter’s carefree and unguarded smile. It had been a year or more since he’d seen Hunter smile like that. Probably since everything went down with Scott Larkin the previous fall. Alec assumed the kid had brushed off the incident—his performance on the field never faltered—but Alec had never actually asked him how he was doing. He felt like a selfish asshole.
After buying Hunter a bag full of ham biscuits and dropping him at the high school, Alec stopped by the small office he kept in a nondescript strip mall away from downtown. He was juggling several projects around Falcon and a couple in neighboring counties. Word-of-mouth had sent him clients from as far as Jasper and Tuscaloosa.
He spent the rest of the day ignoring his aches and pains and shoving thoughts of Lilliana aside. Except she skipped around the edges of his mind even while he oversaw an expensive kitchen remodel. The tile was expensive, but seeing it on the walls made Alec think of Lilliana’s pink bathroom.
After scavenging remnants to show Lilliana later, he moved on to the next job and the next until it was time for football practice. His fall schedule revolved around football, and he often went back to work after practice. His days were busy, leaving little time for a social life, but that suited him fine. He’d partied enough in his youth to last a lifetime.
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