by Celia Ashley
She, on the other hand, had nothing to compare it to, despite the circumstances of her father’s demise. She hadn’t been there, hadn’t sat by his bedside. Sometimes it seemed less than real because of that. An orphaned adult. No parents, no brothers or sisters. She did have an aunt out in California and planned, perhaps next year, to visit, but in the meantime, with the exception of her friends left behind in Tennessee, she was alone.
“Good God, don’t start feeling sorry for yourself on that account.” The sound of her own voice startled her and she glanced around. From about a dozen feet away a man nodded in her direction. The cigarette in his mouth smoldered with a deep ruddy glow in the shadows. “Sorry,” she said. “Sometimes I talk to myself.”
He gave a short laugh and went back to gazing toward the water, smoke drifting up into the bright light beaming over the fence at his back. Paige reached into her pocket to fish out the photograph Billy Woodward gave her. She suspected he would be found blameless in this whole thing once Dan spoke with him, but Billy might be able to provide a more complete description of the perpetrator. Of course, a description, even a sketch, would be worthless if they didn’t come up with an identity to attach to the face.
Holding the photo close, Paige was able to make out Debra Waters’ features in the tangled crossing of shadow and light. Her mom hadn’t been one for photos. But this one the woman had liked. The picture had been taken in July, the year before her mom had gotten sick. At a barbecue. And the laughter had reached Debra’s eyes in a way it rarely did. Paige had always imagined her mom as the stronger one of the pair of them. Lately, she’d begun to wonder if Debra hadn’t just been good at hiding her weaknesses. Maybe that was all anyone could hope for, really. Not revealing to others your fragility, your fears.
“You believe in ghosts?”
“Bloody hell,” Paige cried as she recoiled, the photo fluttering from her fingers. She bent and snatched the snapshot back as she sidled away from the speaker. She smelled the cigarette smoke and realized the man she’d apologized to had moved up next to her without her knowing it. She had to be more careful. Liam would be pissed, and rightly so.
“Why do you ask?” She shoved the photo back into her pocket, taking a moment to collect herself. The stranger stood with his back to the floodlight, his hair in a halo around his shadowed face.
“Because I’ve seen them. I see one now.”
Paige glanced toward the water where the boats were running in slow formation like geese in flight, perhaps with Liam manning one. Although not a believer in any sort of mystical occurrences before her arrival back in Alcina Cove, she now felt she had reason to reassess her beliefs. Had the man at her side some uncanny knowledge of death out on the sea this night? She asked him as much. He laughed, startling her. She whipped around to face him.
“Something’s funny about this situation?” she demanded.
“You probably don’t see it, I expect.”
The fine hairs shifted at Paige’s nape beneath her ponytail. She shivered. “What? The humor or the ghost?”
“You never look in the mirror? See what’s staring back at you?”
“I see myself in the mirror. Nothing else.” Paige started walking backward in the direction of the uniformed man at the barricade. “Whatever you see is your business.”
The man lifted the cigarette from his side and took another drag, the ember flaring. Smoke curled above his head. “We’re talking about you. What you see. Don’t you see your dead mama? You’re the spitting image.”
A sudden, searing rage surged through her. Paige clenched her hands into fists and took two steps toward the man. “Who are you? Tell me. Tell me who you are and what you want.”
He sniggered. “You don’t seem much scared right now. But you will be.”
“Of you? I don’t think so.”
“I can make you scared. I can hurt you, Paige Waters. Don’t you ever doubt it.”
Paige launched herself at the man as he turned away. She landed on his back with one arm around his throat, knocking him to his knees with the impact of her body against his spine. Aiming a punch at the side of his head, her knuckles slammed into his skull with a sickening crunch as a finger snapped. In the next instant, she was sailing through the air, crashing up against the fence, bouncing to the ground. His foot came down, hard, on the bone of her hip near the small of her back, causing sharp pain to shoot down her leg. Blood and agony whistled in her ears as she tried, without breath in her lungs, to move, to defend herself. Pounding footfalls bounced on the earth beneath her grazed cheek. She heard the man above her snarl as one last kick caught her in the thigh before he ran.
* * * *
“Jesus, Paige, what were you thinking?”
Paige looked from Liam, who had spoken, to Dan, who had not. “I wasn’t,” she said. “Not for one second.” She touched the ace bandage on her hand. Her finger hadn’t broken, only jammed.
“You know I can’t charge him with assault if we find him,” Dan said. He almost sounded amused. “You attacked him, and he could, reasonably, claim self defense.”
“He kicked her on the ground!”
“Liam,” said Paige quietly. “He knows that. I think Dan is only trying to make a point.”
“No better look at him this time,” Dan commented, not as question, but in reiteration of a previously stated fact.
“No,” Paige said. “I’m wondering if he stages it that way. If he does, that makes him creepier than ever.”
“He knew her name, Stauffer. He knows who she is.”
Paige raised her gaze again to Liam, finding him and Dan in the middle of some kind of eyeball showdown. Shifting on the hospital bed, Paige grimaced at the pain in her hip. “He knew my mom, too, apparently. Let’s not forget that. I’m sure they weren’t buddies, but he knew of her. Maybe there was some kind of obsession there?” Paige blew out a sudden breath. “Again with the looks? What gives with you two?”
“We’re both worried about you,” said Liam.
“Dan doesn’t know me that well, so I doubt he’s worried except from a case standpoint. There’s a lunatic out there. For that matter, you don’t know me all that well, either.” Liam’s subtle change of expression brought instant remorse. “I’m sorry. I hurt and I’m cranky and I want to go home. None of which is any excuse for what I just said. Dan, I apologize to you, too. You both have gone above and beyond, and I appreciate it. I really do. But I want the doctor with the damned paperwork so I can get out of here.”
Paige caught another mute exchange out of the corner of her eye before Dan excused himself, saying he would check for the doctor. Liam sat on the bed beside her. He slipped both hands around her undamaged one and lifted her wrist onto his thigh.
“You do need to go home,” he said.
“Liam, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Don’t ever tolerate that from me.”
“You need to go home,” he repeated, “to Tennessee.”
Her stomach muscles tensed as if anticipating a blow. What he said made sense, was logical, and obviously discussed with Dan, if she read the last eye contact between them correctly. “I don’t want to.”
“I know you had a plan to find out about your father and mother, the life you left behind, but—”
“That’s not the only reason.” She tightened her fingers in his. “That is not the only reason I won’t leave.”
“You’re a very stubborn woman, Paige.”
“And I think you like that about me.”
“One of the things I like about you. One of the numerous things.” He kissed her, pulling her close, and she breathed an ouch into the hollow of his mouth, but she wouldn’t let him back away. After several moments she did, though, leaning her forehead against his chin.
“We’re going to have to be careful until you feel better. No acrobatics,” Liam murmured against the hair curling up from her loosened ponytail to snag in his stubbled beard. “And we’ll come up with a plan—a plan yo
u need to stick to—to keep you safe.”
She nodded against him.
“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything happened to you, Paige.”
She had been about to say “not your responsibility,” but she kept her sentiment to herself. Maybe, to some degree, it was his responsibility. Maybe his sense of duty, of accountability, fit in with her vague definition of what lovers should be to each other. And maybe she wanted that when she never really had it before.
Paige straightened at a short bout of throat-clearing near the door. She flinched at the movement, turning to find Dan watching them.
“Well?” he said.
Liam shook his head.
“Right. If you two weren’t clinging to each other like furry little littermates, you might have been able to convince her otherwise.”
Paige’s lips twisted at his comment, a surge of ridiculous affection expunging her earlier anger at the man.
Dan nodded. “I’m heading out. We’ll talk more on this subject over the next couple of days. Oh, and I have a visit planned to young Billy tomorrow. See what he has to say.”
Dan departed without fanfare. Paige could see the doctor through the doorway at the main desk and figured he’d be in any minute. “In Britain, they call what we were just doing ‘snogging,’ I believe.”
“Yes,” agreed Liam with a hint of laughter in his voice.
“I like the sounds of that. It’s homey and comforting and down-to-earth, somehow. Also, reminds me of food. I don’t know why.”
“All right. Snogging it is, then.”
“And lots of it. As soon as we’re somewhere not surrounded by Plexiglas panels.”
“Deal,” he said. The doctor came in and Liam rose from the bed. Paige took a deep breath, readying herself to fool the physician into believing she felt absolutely wonderful so she could get the hell out of the ER without argument.
Chapter 21
Flipping the ring in her fingers, Paige found the key for the deadbolt and inserted it. She turned the brass to disengage the tumblers.
Liam’s hand fell across hers. “Hold on.”
Paige pulled back with a start, thinking Liam had spotted something amiss with the door, but when she looked up at him, she saw his attention drawn to the waterline, eyes narrowed. Paige followed his gaze and sucked in a breath.
“Is that what you’ve been seeing, down there by the water?” he questioned.
In the same unwavering pace she’d witnessed before, the man with the lantern dangling at his side moved beside the surf. With the exception of certain details, portions of his body appeared almost translucent.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“And it’s not the same guy who—”
“No.”
“Good to know. It’s not who I thought you might be seeing, either.”
“And who might that have been?”
“A neighbor,” he answered with a dismissive shrug.
“So all that blather about ghosts and mirages was…?”
“Not blather.”
Paige frowned. Her head had started to hurt along the route home. The doctor had checked for signs of concussion, but she hadn’t hit her head. Not directly, although the back of her skull had come into brief contact with the fence after the rest of her body slammed into it. The dull ache was probably the aftermath of adrenaline flooding her veins. Driving had been difficult, but she hadn’t wanted to leave her car in town. Liam had to satisfy himself with following close behind in the Jeep. When they arrived, they’d found an officer in a patrol car stationed on the shoulder across the road and had been informed, in no uncertain terms, that he, or someone else from the department, would be there all night.
With a sigh, Paige removed the keys from the door. “Since we’ve got a patrol car right out front, it’s probably safe for us to go down and check.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Seriously, let’s go.” Paige limped forward a little, then paused when she realized Liam was hanging back.
“You don’t need to be walking down that hill,” he said. “Let’s just go inside.”
“Why don’t we stand here a few minutes? We’ll see if he disappears or comes close enough for us to know for sure.” She went back to Liam and fit herself under his arm. After several seconds she found herself leaning all her weight against him in order to release the pressure off her left side. He slid his hand beneath the curve of her arm in support.
“There’s a legend I’ve written about in several iterations, but I’ve never seen the apparition others have spoken of. Do I think this might be it? I don’t know. Normally, spirits don’t appear with such clarity or frequency. Do I want to find out? Sure, I do. But staying here is a better option than lugging you down to that beach and back.”
She smiled against soft fabric, breathing him in. She loved his scent. It was like both balm and aphrodisiac. She wondered on an exhausted tangent if there was some way to bottle the stuff.
“What is it?” she asked. “The legend, I mean.” Pressing against him, she watched the floating light. Prior to the occurrence at the nature preserve and her injuries, she would have bolted down to the beach to prove Liam wrong with all his ghost stories, but since then…
“An old seaman lost his daughter at sea and reportedly walks the beach at night hoping for some sign of her washed upon the shore,” Liam said.
“Good God, that’s a terrible story.”
“I don’t make them up. I just write them down. But he’s rather solid, isn’t he?”
Paige tightened her fist, the keys biting into her palm. “He’s been pretty solid to me every time.”
Another glow caught her eye, appearing close to the top of the jetty. “Look. Over by the rocks.” Liam’s body stiffened against hers, the muscles in the arm across her back like whipcord. As a light bounced over the rocks and onto the beach—clearly a flashlight held in someone’s hand and not a lantern’s glow—he muttered under his breath.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“I know you don’t like trespassers.”
“I don’t.”
Paige stood immobile as a sense of déjà vu overwhelmed her. Had she witnessed something similar long ago? Probably. She’d lived in the house next door for thirteen years. People coming down to the beach uninvited wouldn’t be anything new. Yet her gaze kept drifting to the tide beyond the lantern’s glow and the approach of what appeared to be two people with a flashlight. To the place where she’d seen the gulls her first night back in Alcina Cove, and the memory, just out of reach…
Mom, what is that?
Sweetheart, don’t. It’s nothing.
Mom, no, I can see—
Come away. We shouldn’t be here.
She saw again the mounded kelp and stone, the image of a body in her mind’s eye, the flash of starlight…or was it metal?
“Paige, are you all right?”
Liam was suddenly in full support of her sagging body. In one fluid motion, he scooped her up into his arms. She wrapped her hands behind his neck, poking him in the ear.
“Sorry.”
“Sh, let’s get you inside.”
“Wait. Liam, look!”
The two figures with the flashlight strode in a direct line over the sand toward the man with the lantern. As Paige watched, they converged with him and tramped straight through without pause, as if nothing existed there. An instant later, the lantern and the form holding it blinked out of existence. Liam’s breath rushed out in audible release.
“You did see that, too, right?”
He nodded against the side of her head. “I did.”
Carrying on the wind, laughter reached Paige and Liam where they stood. A couple strode hand in hand, nearly lost against the water but for the gaily swinging flashlight between them. Trying for humor, Paige elbowed Liam’s arm. “Aren’t you going to run down there and chase the
m off?”
“Nope.”
“Maybe we should find out what they saw?”
“Obviously,” said Liam, turning his back on the ocean and the now frolicking couple, “they saw nothing.”
Paige wrinkled her brow. To Paige, this incident had been less frightening than the occurrence within the circle of stone. The comparatively small frisson of trepidation she felt now mingled with strange excitement. An exhilaration Liam didn’t appear to feel. Liam, the man who made a living—of sorts, as he had said—writing about the supernatural acted more uneasy than elated, a reaction she would not have expected from him. After the night they’d both had, his uneasiness was catching. She had the key to the door ready in her fingers as he carried her back to the cottage
* * * *
Liam lit the burner beneath the battered teapot to make Paige some tea. Shock’s aftermath had reared its ugly head. Paige lay on the bed curled in a tight ball, an ice bag lodged against the ugly black bruise on her hip. He’d given her two aspirin and tried to convince her to let him fill the prescription the emergency room doctor had written, but she’d refused. Searching the metal cabinets above the counter for the box of tea supposedly inside, he eventually located a nearly empty container of chamomile and prepared a cup once the kettle whistled. He carried the mug on a plate with a couple of cream-filled cookies beside it.
“You’re a very nice man, Liam Gray,” she said as she rolled a little to reach for a cookie. He set the plate on the nightstand and sat with care on the mattress so he wouldn’t jostle her.
“Not really.”
“Don’t argue with a sick lady.”
“You’re not sick. You are, however—”
“Extremely foolish? I know.”
“Not foolish,” he corrected. “Reckless, though, I will admit.”
“Yeah, I got that memo tonight. In boldface type.”
He tucked her hair behind her ear. She’d ripped the hair band out and tossed it on the counter as soon as he carried her in the door, but the elastic had bounced off into a corner somewhere. “You might have been seriously hurt, worse than you are now. What stopped him, do you know? Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful to whatever caused him to run, but I know the officer at the barrier said the bastard was already gone by the time he got to you.”