Lost Yesterday

by Jenny Lykins

  He stood on the balcony, his right foot resting on the lower rail of the banister. The river held his attention again.

  Marin stood less than thirty feet from the house, with a perfect view of him from below. She stood absolutely still and studied his handsome countenance. His solemn profile wrenched at her heart, but it was nothing compared to the surge of heat that enveloped her when he turned and faced her.

  She took an involuntary step backward, then stopped. He put both hands on the rail, leaned his weight against them, and studied her as she studied him. Marin tried to look away but couldn't. She had an uncanny sense that he knew her thoughts when the slightest hint of a smile curved his lips and a crescent-shaped dimple creased his left cheek. Her heart thundered, the blood roared in her ears, and heat that had nothing to do with the July sun crept across her neck.

  This wasn't fear. This was pure excitement. And that was something she never allowed herself to feel. She enjoyed the nearly forgotten sensation though; enjoyed and savored the staring match with this gorgeous ghost. What could it hurt? The guy was already dead; it wasn't like he could up and die on her all over again.

  And again, she felt her thoughts invaded. His hint of a smile turned into a full-fledged grin; a matching dimple appeared in his other cheek.

  Her insides developed a bad case of butterflies as she smiled back at that pair of incredibly blue eyes. He reached out a hand, and she could have sworn that across thirty feet of lawn and two stories of building she felt a warm caress on her cheek.

  She jerked herself to attention and tried to scramble her thoughts from him. How very disconcerting to think that someone, even a ghost, could react to her unspoken musings.

  He stood to attention, too, then clicked his heels and tipped an imaginary hat. Then, in the blink of an eye, he dissolved into thin air.

  "Oh, this is too weird, Alexander. You're going to need therapy if you start flirting with a spook!" Marin had long held conversations with herself when something needed analyzing. She'd found that sometimes just saying the words out loud brought reason to a strange situation.

  This was not one of those times.

  She continued hesitantly on to the house. Flirting with him when she was outside in broad daylight was one thing. The possibility of meeting him face to face in closed quarters was something else altogether.

  The cool sanity of the gift shop seemed safe enough. Helen and Jean sat with their stockinged feet propped on a mutual chair, magazines in hands. They mumbled a greeting, barely looking up, when the tinkling bell over the door announced Marin's arrival.

  She dumped her purse in the file cabinet under "P," rearranging the other two purses in order to shut the drawer. This simple task proved harder than she would have imagined, since her hands shook so badly she could barely control them.

  "Pretty humid out there, huh?" Jean always had a firm grasp on the obvious.

  "Yeah," Marin answered distractedly. She decided to keep this latest experience to herself. She dropped into her chair and rolled to her desk.

  "This is him! Good grief, this is him!"

  The two docents jumped up and crowded behind the desk. Everyone talked at once.

  "Which one of you found it? This is great! I can't believe you found it!"

  Both docents looked at each other and waited for the other to confess to finding the picture.

  "Oh, don't tell me neither one of you guys put this on my desk!"

  "I didn't."

  "Neither did I."

  That wave of heat crashed back across Marin's neck. She looked behind her to see if a pair of mocking, blue eyes watched. Though the room was specter-free she decided maybe she wouldn't investigate too closely where the picture came from.

  She looked back at the photograph, and her phantom's image seemed to come alive. Though the photo was black and white she could see the color of his eyes as clearly as she had just minutes ago on the balcony.

  "Which one is yours, Marin?"

  Obviously, Helen had already filled Jean in on the story. She pointed to the most dynamic face in the group of people.

  "That's him."

  The two women leaned closer to the picture. Jean whistled through her teeth.

  "Wow! Does he look that good in real life - I mean in person? You know what I mean."

  Marin knew exactly what Jean meant.

  "Better."

  She and her little group perused the photo and speculated on who the people were. Three men and four women stared back at them from the photograph, most in the classic, nineteenth century pose of solemn features and rigid bodies. The two other men in the photo seemed roughly the same age as Marin's ghost, but neither possessed the looks or charisma that leapt from his likeness. Two of the women appeared very young, probably in their early twenties. Another woman, attractive with dark hair and laughing eyes, stood out from the crowd with an impish smile for the camera. The fourth, perhaps in her fifties, wore an expression that suggested she'd just sucked on a fresh-picked lemon.

  The door opening to the gift shop set the bell ringing, drawing their attention back to the present. Helen and Jean left to greet the new group of tourists, but Marin remained focused on the photograph. She turned it over to see if it was labeled.

  Bingo!

  Her heart fluttered when she saw his name. She knew it was his name. Written in spidery, black copperplate was:

  Hunter Pierce, mother Lucille Pierce

  companion and neighbors

  Well, this didn't answer who the others were, but Hunter and his mother were unmistakable. She knew Hunter had been one of the mansion's owners, and the lemon-sucker must be Mom.

  It was impossible to tell which woman was with which man. The men stood on the top step, the ladies were grouped on the next. No one seemed to be standing with anyone in particular. Three men and four women. Which were the wives and which was the companion? And who was she a companion to? A ridiculous flash of jealousy surged through Marin. Funny, but she didn't want any of the women to be with Hunter.

  Hunter.

  The name suited him.

  She spent the rest of the day buried in letters, diaries and more pictures. His name appeared in a few of the papers, but only as owner of Pierce Hall or as the purchaser on a bill of lading. She was down to a last handful of letters and a diary. The letters would require such painstaking care, she opted to check the diary first.

  The flyleaf stated the owner as Julia Beecham Pierce, and the year as 1935. Marin was about to lay the book aside when something slid from the pages and fluttered to the floor. When she bent to scoop up the wayward paper, she nearly fell out of her chair.

  It wasn't a piece of paper at all, but another picture of Hunter. She reverently picked up the photograph and studied the now familiar features.

  This was a much younger Hunter - probably in his early twenties. His eyes were just as riveting, but his unsmiling face sported a mustache that curved down over the corners of his mouth. She liked him better clean-shaven. The mustache made him look severe, not to mention it threatened to hide those wonderful dimples, should one appear.

  "That's the last of them, Marin. Jean's already gone for the day, and unless you need help, I'm ready to go, too."

  Marin glanced at her watch, surprised at how late it was. She gathered up the mess on her desk and told Helen it was all right to leave.

  "Are you sure you don't want me to stay and help you close up? I have plenty of time. I'd hate for you to meet the new haunt again after I leave." Marin's stomach flipped at Helen’s teasing, but she waved away the concern.

  "Actually, I saw him again after lunch and -"

  "You what?"

  "Yeah, I was walking from the street and he was on the upstairs veranda."

  She related the experience to Helen, not bothering to mention the fact that she'd flirted with him. Helen was speechless over the sightings being so close together.

  "Anyway, I think it's safe to leave. Surely I won't see him again today. Besides
, I just won't go on the veranda."

  Marin finally persuaded Helen to leave when she pointed out how long it would take to put her desk in order.

  With all the papers finally refiled, Marin arched her back, her hands low on her hips, then picked up her purse and briefcase and started on her rounds of the house. She tried to walk through with the same sense of purpose and nonchalance she'd had for the past three months.

  It was hard.

  Lightning flashed in the distance. One, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand. Thunder rumbled. The storm was three miles away.

  When she got to the door that opened to the upper veranda she flipped the lock and turned away. An overwhelming urge swept over her before she took a step. Almost against her will, she found herself unlocking the door, stepping onto the balcony.

  Her heart thrummed like a drumroll in her chest as she tip-toed to the east end of the porch. Holding her breath, she inched her head around the corner until she had a clear view all the way to the river.

  Nothing.

  There was just the porch, with the same lonely rockers and the same ugly plastic owl nailed to the ceiling to scare off the birds. She waited a minute to see if anything would appear, but the air, though thick with moisture, remained clear and hot.

  Suddenly she jerked around and looked behind her. Nothing. Hers was the only spirit occupying the veranda this evening.

  Her laugh came unheralded - shaky and unnaturally loud in the quiet, early evening. This was great. In twenty-four hours she had gone from being a serious, level-headed person to a whacko creeping around haunted houses.

  A clap of thunder boomed so loud and near the vibration rumbled through her entire body. She jumped and dropped her briefcase, which landed a good two yards away. She no sooner collected herself enough to pick up her briefcase than a bolt of lightning flashed and another thunderclap reverberated.

  She broke every speed record she had for closing up and getting out of the house. Thunder boomed several more times before she got to the river oak where she'd watched Hunter earlier. She turned and looked back at the balcony. An early dusk from the approaching storm darkened the recesses, but a flash of lightning revealed no presence.

  When she turned back toward the car, a scream tore from her throat to join another rumble of thunder.

  Hunter stood in front of her, not six feet away. Lightning illuminated the landscape and made him seem almost real.

  This time she lost both briefcase and purse. She snatched them off the ground with a huff. Fear, or shock, put words in her mouth without benefit of thought.

  "Good Lord, don't do that!" She couldn't believe she'd just yelled at a ghost.

  He stared at her, then that impossible dimple appeared.

  Another burst of light pierced the slate gray sky. Marin thought she saw the tiniest hint of a cleft in his chin.

  He reached up and rubbed the area.

  She was wrong about his hair. It wasn't black. It was that rich, dark brown that would come alive with streaks of gold in the summer.

  He plowed his fingers through it from temple to crown.

  "Stop doing that,! Geez! Didn't anybody ever tell you it's rude to go wandering around in someone else's mind?" This was really too much. She should be having a panic attack instead of giving lessons in manners!

  The second dimple appeared. Hunter gave her a look of pure innocence. She could tell by his expression that he was accustomed to charming women speechless.

  The landscape darkened, then lit again. She jumped at the sight of him walking toward her. Weren't ghosts supposed to float or something? Hers walked. It was all the more unnerving because he did.

  Her gray eyes never left his hypnotic blue gaze as she teetered backward with each step he took. He showed no sign of stopping, even when he was only inches away.

  With sudden uncharacteristic clairvoyance she knew what he intended to do.

  He wouldn't dare! She stopped in her tracks to protest, but it was too late. His translucent form melted into hers.

  An explosion of sensations chain-reacted throughout her body. Instead of the legendary cold, a permeating heat flash-flooded her essence and coiled to erupt in the very center of her being. Her body trembled in paroxysms of unbearable pleasure so intense her legs threatened to buckle.

  The erotic sentience lasted for what seemed like minutes instead of seconds. When it abated enough to allow coherent thought, Marin’s knees felt like spaghetti, her skin tingled from head to toe, her heartbeat pounded in her temples.

  Suddenly she felt more alone than she’d felt since Ryan’s death. She yearned to feel all the things she’d worked so hard to repress. She wanted to feel alive with someone.

  These were dangerous musings. She reminded herself of the hard-earned wisdom it took her a lifetime to learn - get close, get hurt.

  Shoving all sensations to the back of her mind, she gathered her wits about her and looked around. Hunter stood back in his original position, looking for all the world as if he were ready to light up a cigarette.

  She pulled a deep breath of the ozone-charged air into her lungs and searched her mind for something to say.

  That left dimple appeared with a tender smile, and he raised his hand. Though separated by six feet, she felt the warm caress of him palm on her cheek. She closed her eyes to savor the feeling. When she opened them, he was gone.

  The heavens picked that moment to open up with a reality-inducing downpour. Marin tucked her purse under her arm and sheltered her head with her briefcase as she ran for the car. Drenched to the skin by the time she got the door unlocked and climbed in, she rubbed the excess water from her hair with one of the towels, then fired up the engine and roared down the street, afraid to even look in the rearview mirror.

  What in the world was she going to do now? How could she deal with being the director of an antebellum home, haunted by its mind-reading ghost, not to mention whatever that was that just passed between them on the front lawn. There was absolutely no way she could work in that house if Hunter continued to appear on a daily basis. For Pete's sake, she was attracted to a dead man!

  How poetic, she thought with a tinge of bitterness. Everyone I've ever cared about has ended up dead. Now they're just starting out that way.

  Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed as she floored the Mustang up Riverside Drive to her condo. Deep in thought about how to deal with the situation, she jumped and swerved at the misty sight of a horse and antique buggy in the middle of the road.

  The car had nowhere to go but into the bluffs. Her last thoughts were a jumble of shattering glass, pain on her forehead, something warm and sticky.

  Then everything went black.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Cold rain battered down on her with a vengeance. She tried to raise up on her elbows but her hands slid through thick, black mud.

  When Marin rolled onto her back, her throbbing head sank into the ooze. She had no idea how long she'd lain there.

  She tried to rise one more time but felt as if an elephant sat on her chest. Her energy drained from her in waves. Between thunderclaps she heard a masculine voice cursing, then felt a pair of gentle hands checking her for broken bones.

  She tried to lift her head to tell the paramedics where she hurt. Rain and mud and matted hair blinded her when she opened her eyes. After dragging a filthy forearm across her face, she blinked to clear her vision.

  She must have hit her head harder than she thought. The paramedic looked just like Hunter! More blinking only brought his features into focus.

  "Have a care, Miss Sander. My home is not far. I've already sent a man to fetch Dr. Ritter."

  She tried to tell him he'd left off part of her name. And he needed to know which hospitals were covered by her insurance. But he interrupted her, his voice both tender and comfortingly masculine.

  "No, no. Do not try to talk or move. I'll carry you."

  This was really quite funny. At least it would be if her head didn't hurt
so much. Within twenty-four hours she had obsessed over a dead man to the point of seeing him in the flesh now. But she'd have time to worry about that particular reaction when her head stopped throbbing.

  A pair of strong, mud-covered arms scooped her up to cradle her comfortingly against him. The heat of his chest radiated through the cold, wet fabric that covered them both.

  Where was the stretcher? How very unusual. What if she had a back injury?

  She snuggled closer to the warmth his massive chest offered. To heck with the stretcher. Maybe they couldn't get it to her, and he was carrying her to the ambulance. She allowed the blackness to creep closer into her warm, little cocoon.

  Her eyes flew open again when she felt herself being jostled around. She managed to squint through the rain long enough to see that she had just been settled onto Hunter's lap - atop a horse! This was really too much. Had they drugged her before she came to? Was she having an allergic reaction to whatever they’d given her? She struggled against the tight band of his arms, but he held her tight.

  “Shhhh. Shhhh. It’s all right,” he crooned softly.

  The encroaching blackness finally swallowed her completely.

  *******

  "Am I dead?"

  The cadaverous doctor standing over her with ancient medical equipment should be able to answer that for her.

  She had to be dead. It was the only rationalization she could come to. She'd regained consciousness before arriving at the house - the mansion - where she worked. The rooms, lit with gas and a few scattered candles against the gloom of the day, were a far cry from the museum atmosphere she knew so well.

  And then there was Hunter. Try as she might, she couldn't will away his image from the foot of the bed. His face and nineteenth century clothing refused to metamorphose into that of a paramedic’s. She'd pinched herself several times, and even pinched Hunter, but all he'd done was glare at her in surprise. This was not a dream.

  Yes, she had to be dead.

  "Why, no, my dear. You are very much alive." The doctor spoke to her in a voice he probably saved for children.