“He might not have all of the answers, but he’d sure have more than the two of us,” she agreed. “He’s lived in the middle, after all. When are you going to see him?”
“Right now.”
“Well, tell me what you find out in the morning. I’ve got to get some sleep if I’m going to tackle all those ninth-graders first period. And they probably won’t be all that thrilled to see me after I gave them that history assignment.” She grinned. “Hey, I don’t suppose you had a chance to look up any more information about our history tonight, did you?”
Dax shook his head. “Afraid not. From the time you left until just a few moments ago, I was fairly busy helping one ghost find the light…and trying to keep another one from even going near it.”
“No problem,” she said. “There’s always tomorrow.”
“You do realize that I work tomorrow, too,” he said, “and that I’m somewhat preoccupied with getting Celeste back.”
“Shoot, you’re a pro at multitasking—keeping up your work, helping with the house, getting ghosts to the other side. And if there’s a way, I’m betting you’ll get Celeste back too. Face it, you always get the job done, no matter what the job is.” Nan uncurled her legs from the chair and stood. “Why would this time be any different?”
She was right. Why shouldn’t he be able to pull it all off this time? Only, this time he was talking about the ghost who’d controlled his entire being with her kiss.
“And Dax,” she said as she started to walk away.
“Yeah?”
“Let me know when you get Celeste back.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll let everyone know.”
He left the house with Nanette’s final words echoing in his thoughts. Nan hadn’t said if you get Celeste back; she’d said when. And that was exactly how Dax felt. He’d lost her twice, but, on the reverse side of that, she’d made it to him twice too. If she could make it twice, she could make it again.
Third time, he prayed, was the charm. And hopefully, Ryan would offer a little insight about how to make it happen.
5
THE DRIVE FROM the plantation to Ormond, where Ryan and Monique’s house was located, typically took about thirty minutes. Dax made it in twenty. He pulled onto their street and immediately noticed that the small house they were renting was lit up like an airport runway, with Ryan’s truck piled high with furniture and backed up to the front door.
Dax parked the car and climbed out, immediately noticing that Tristan was here; his Jeep was parked outside. Obviously, Monique had recruited the oldest male cousin of the bunch to help unload, since her brothers were both preoccupied with hospital duty and helping spirits. Dax could only imagine the cussing Tristan was doing at being the only Vicknair here.
As if on cue, Tristan’s tall frame exited the open front door of the house and he swore a stream of expletives that would make a sailor blush. “Did you leave anything at the plantation?” he asked sarcastically.
“Oh, stop complaining,” Monique said, dusting her palms together as she followed him out. “This is the last load, and I’ve cut your hair for free since I opened my shop. You owe me.”
“Shit, I’d rather pay for the cut.” Tristan tested the weight of a tall dresser by lifting one end. “Tell your husband to get out here and help me with this one,” he said, then apparently noticed Dax. “Scratch that, Dax is here. Come on over here. It’s about time you showed up.”
Monique brushed a big blond curl out of her eyes. “Hey, did you come to help?” she asked, then frowned. “You look terrible. What’s up? Something wrong?”
“Yeah,” Dax said. “Something is definitely wrong.” A major understatement. He’d lost the woman he loved—twice.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Celeste. She came back, and then she left again.” Dax helped Tristan maneuver the dresser off.
“Celeste? She came back?” Monique sounded as surprised as Dax had been when he’d first seen Celeste and Prissy in the sitting room. “Your ghost?”
His ghost. That was a nice way to think of her, but it was kind of hard to call Celeste “his” when he didn’t know if he’d ever see her again. “Yeah, she came back today with my assigned spirit, and then she left.”
“Left? As in, back to the other side?” Tristan asked.
“As in,” Dax said, nodding. “And I’ve got to figure out how to get her back.”
Tristan put his end of the dresser on the ground with a thud. “Come again?”
“I’m going to figure out how to bring her back, and I need Ryan to help me make that happen.”
“That’s my brother,” Monique said, beaming. “Just because she’s a ghost doesn’t mean it can’t work out.”
Tristan shook his head. “Hell, the whole family’s going nuts. First you go and marry a spirit, and now he’s thinking he can bring back one who’s crossed.”
“I don’t know if she’s crossed or not,” Dax explained. “My gut tells me she’s stuck somewhere in the middle.”
“You do realize it’d be a whole lot easier to find you a girl that’s still breathing, don’t you?” Tristan said, giving Dax one of his trademark skeptical looks that made most folks think twice about whatever they were contemplating.
Lucky for Dax, he was immune to it. “Hey, if I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.” Typically, Tristan wouldn’t have let that go without another smart-ass remark, but evidently, he could tell by Dax’s tone that he wasn’t in the mood to be messed with tonight, especially not when it came to Celeste.
“Like I said,” Tristan repeated, “this family’s losing it.”
Monique moved to one end of the dresser. “I’ll help Tristan with this. Why don’t you head on into the kitchen. Ryan just carried some chairs in there, so you’ll have a place to sit and talk. He’s due a break anyway, he’s been unloading trucks all day. And you don’t need to worry about helping us, we’re almost done. You concentrate on getting Celeste back.”
Tristan’s jaw fell. “You’ve gotta be kidding. You’re going to let him show up now, at the end of the day, and during the last load, and get by without helping? Shit, I’m just your cousin, he’s your brother. I’d say he pulls rank on helping you move.”
“I’m sorry, Tristan,” Monique said sweetly. “Are your muscles hurting? I guess I assumed firemen were strong enough to take the heat.”
“Hell,” Tristan said, but he chuckled, and lifted his end.
“Now go talk to Ryan. Maybe he can help you figure out how to get her back,” Monique instructed, ever the bossy sister. “Ryan! Dax is here, and he wants to talk to you. I’m sending him around.” Moving slowly toward the house and grunting a little with each step, she glanced at Dax and ordered, “Walk around the side of the house,” while Tristan backed through the front door and cussed when his knuckles scraped against the frame.
Following Monique’s command, as if anybody in their right mind would tell her no, Dax rounded the house then climbed the steps leading to the kitchen, where Ryan was lifting a boxful of appliances onto the counter. His gray T-shirt had a sweat-dampened V from the neck to the chest, and his hair was even darker than usual, in wet waves from exertion.
“Come on in.” He turned toward a red-and-white cooler shoved to one corner of the kitchen floor and withdrew two Cokes, then handed one to Dax. “Here. Monique said she didn’t want us drinking beer while we’re moving her furniture,” he said with a shrug. “So, in the interest of maintaining marital bliss, this is the best I can do.”
“Coke is fine,” Dax said, taking the icy can from Ryan.
“Have a seat. I guess the two of us are supposed to take a break and chat, while Tristan busts his balls hauling furniture.” He said the last words a little louder than the rest.
“I heard that,” Tristan grumbled from the hall, and Monique laughed loudly.
Dax popped the top on the can, then took a much-needed dose of carbonated caffeine. He hadn’t had a thing to eat or drink since that cu
p of coffee he’d had with Nan, not that he’d even thought of taking care of those types of physical needs while Celeste had been here. Taking care of sexual needs, on the other hand…
“So you need to talk to me?” Ryan asked, sitting at the table, then taking a long drink from his soda. “Damn, I’d really rather have a beer.”
“Ryan?” Monique called sweetly, her voice echoing down the hallway from the front of the house.
“Yeah?”
“Honey, did you enjoy yourself last night?”
A long pause caused a noticeable silence.
“Did you?” she called again.
“Hell, yeah,” Ryan finally answered.
“Well, if you want to enjoy tonight, you’ll stop complaining about there being no beer in the house.”
Another long pause, then Ryan shrugged, and smiled. “Deal.”
“Good then, that’s settled,” she said rather triumphantly, either because she was getting her way now, or because she’d also be getting her way later.
Still grinning, Ryan asked, “Okay, what’d you want to ask me?”
“I want to know how you controlled where you went when you were in the middle. Or rather, when you visited someone who was living.”
Ryan placed his drink on the table and leaned back in his chair. “How I controlled it?”
“Yeah. How did you go back and forth, from the middle to this side? What did you do to make it happen?”
Ryan’s head shook slightly as he answered. “I didn’t do anything. I thought about where I wanted to go, or who I wanted to see, and I went. That’s all there was to it.”
“You’re saying you just had to think about it?” Dax asked, baffled. Why had Ryan been able to act like any other ghost when Celeste couldn’t?
“I had total control over it.” Ryan folded his arms at his chest. “Why are you asking?”
“It’s Celeste. She came back today, and we were together for a little while, not nearly long enough, and then she was pulled away again.” Dax didn’t bother explaining who Celeste was; Ryan knew her from his time in the middle. In fact, when Ryan had been hovering between the other side and the living, Monique had tried to play matchmaker between the two spirits, but Ryan had already fallen for Monique. However, they were friends, which meant Ryan understood her, and not only that, he understood her current situation, living in the middle.
“I thought Celeste crossed over with Chloe,” Ryan said.
“I thought so too, but she didn’t, and she came back today to help another little girl cross, and…”
“And?” Ryan asked.
“And to be with me.”
Ryan nodded, not needing further information. He obviously remembered what it was like to be caught between this side and the light, and he’d know more than anyone how hard it was when the one you loved wasn’t dwelling on the same side of the spectrum. “I don’t know why she wouldn’t be able to come and go at will. It doesn’t make sense.”
“You never knew of ghosts who would get—stuck—in either place, or something like that?”
“I’m sorry, man, but no,” he said. “Are you saying that she didn’t seem to have any control over when she left you today? She couldn’t have maybe thought of another place, or someone else, and gone to them? Maybe a family member or something? I mean, that would happen to me—if I got something on my mind, I’d simply go there, wherever it was.”
“She didn’t have any control over it. I’m sure of that,” Dax said. “And trust me, she wasn’t thinking about any other place, or any other person, at the time.” She’d been thinking of him, only him, and the fact that they were finally together, the same way he’d been thinking of her.
Ryan took another sip of his drink, then closed his eyes and leaned his head back. After a couple of seconds, he sat forward and looked at Dax. “She hasn’t been given to anyone else as an assignment, has she? I mean, a medium to help her cross?”
“None of the Vicknair mediums,” Dax said. “We’re certainly not the only folks helping ghosts find their way through, but I think she’d have mentioned it.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Plus, more than likely she’d come to one of you, since she’s been to the Vicknair place twice already, don’t you think?”
Dax nodded.
“Okay. So she can’t control when she comes to this side. Did she say where she goes when she isn’t with you?”
“She said she didn’t know.”
Ryan frowned, shook his head. “Hell, man, I don’t know either. I mean, my experience was totally different. I saw the light but didn’t want to go through, and then, later on, the powers that be wouldn’t let me. In my case, it was because I needed to learn how to love.”
“And thank goodness you figured out how,” Monique chimed in from the doorway.
Ryan smiled, but Dax didn’t.
“So you don’t know what I can do to help her get back through?” he asked, feeling defeated.
His brother-in-law’s grin disappeared, and he looked solemnly toward Dax. “I wish I did, but if she can’t move freely within the middle, then I don’t know what to tell you. That’s nothing like what I went through, and, truthfully, I can’t figure out why she hasn’t crossed over.”
“If she hasn’t,” Dax said. What was to say that she hadn’t crossed tonight, after the two of them had shared that phenomenal kiss?
“Oh, Dax.” Monique entered the kitchen with Tristan close at her heels. She wrapped an arm around him consolingly.
Dax shrugged to shake off her arm. He didn’t want consolation; he wanted answers. “What about sleeping?” he asked. “Have you ever known of ghosts who got tired when they came to this side?”
“Tired?” Ryan repeated. “Ghosts don’t get tired, Dax. Why would they?”
“She did. And I don’t mean a little sleepy either, I mean exhausted, nearly-ready-to-pass-out tired. I saw her like that today, twice.”
“A ghost? Tired?” Tristan repeated from the doorway. “I’ve never seen it.”
“Me, neither,” said Monique.
“Well, trust me, she was,” Dax said.
“That’s not—well, it’s not normal,” Tristan said. “Seriously, why would they need sleep?”
“I don’t know,” Dax admitted. “But there were other things about her that were different too,” he thought aloud.
“Like what?” Monique moved to sit in Ryan’s lap, while Tristan grabbed a Coke from the cooler and joined them at the table.
“Yeah, what else?” Tristan asked. “Maybe we can help you figure out what’s going on.”
“Her clothes. Last time she was here, she was always in the same thing, a yellow tank top and jeans. I assumed that’s what she was wearing when she died.”
“But that wasn’t what she wore this time?” Monique asked.
“No. She wore a white gown.”
“Like a wedding gown?” Tristan asked, surprise evident in his tone.
“No, not like a wedding gown,” Dax said, growing irritated but still wanting answers. “A nightgown, a long, satin nightgown.” A very sexy nightgown that barely balanced on her shoulders and looked as though if he could only ease it down the smoothness of her arms, it would puddle to the ground.
Dax’s imagination was way too vivid, and the image of Celeste, standing beautifully nude before him, was crystal clear. Would the real thing be better than the fantasy? Oh, yeah, he knew it would. But would he ever see her that way? Would he ever see her again at all?
“You changed clothes in the middle,” Monique said to Ryan, and he nodded.
“Yeah, I did.”
“How?” Dax asked, realizing he needed to pay attention to any insight Ryan could offer.
“The same way I moved from one place to another. I thought about what I wanted to wear, and my clothing changed.”
“Just like that?” Dax asked.
Ryan nodded. “Pretty much. Really, there wasn’t anything to it. I thought about it, and I changed.”
“I remember you went from jeans and a T-shirt to a tuxedo right in front of me,” Monique said, and her husband smiled.
“Yeah, I remember that night.”
Dax shook his head. None of this was adding up. “But you changed clothes based on where you were going, what you were doing or who you were seeing, right? I mean, you picked clothing to go with whatever you had going on, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed.
“Celeste came with Prissy and went with her to the hospital, and then she spent time with me back at the house. And the whole time she wore that same gown. Don’t you think that if she could control what she was wearing, she’d have picked something different than a nightgown? And it wasn’t because she died in it, because she obviously died in that jeans and tank top that she wore last time.”
“Maybe it was because she knew she was going to be sleeping while she was here,” Tristan said with a smirk, then held up his palms when Dax glared at him. “Hey, I worked all day and hauled furniture all night, forgive me if I’m leaning toward sarcasm.”
Monique twisted in Ryan’s lap. “Honey, do you remember anything from being in the middle that would help Dax figure out what’s causing her to be so different from all our other spirits?”
Again, Ryan shook his head. “If I did, I’d tell you.”
“Anything else out of the ordinary with her?” she asked. “Something that might help us figure out why she’s stuck in the middle? Other than the sleeping and the clothing, was there anything else different from other ghosts? Did she glow like our regular spirits?”
Dax started to nod, but then he thought about Celeste and Prissy, standing side by side in the sitting room. The little girl’s body had been cloaked in a brilliant, golden glow, so bright that Dax had nearly had to squint to look at her. But Celeste’s appearance hadn’t been nearly as bright.
“No,” he said. “No, she didn’t. Her body was illuminated, but it wasn’t as vivid as the younger spirit’s. But—”
“But?” Monique prompted.
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