Harlequin E Shivers Box Set Volume 4: The HeadmasterDarkness UnchainedForget Me NotQueen of Stone

by Tiffany Reisz

  “Sheriff Constantine sent me to offer you a ride to the Gala, Ms. Clark,” Tom McCall said, his smile not reaching his perpetually mourning eyes.

  She could refuse. She could climb up into her van in chiffon and heels. Or not. Maddy smiled and thanked him. Then she called back over her shoulder for Gibbons who streaked by the deputy’s boots with an undignified yowl.

  Maddy carefully locked the door, aware that Tom observed her moves as if they might make him weep. She placed the spare key in a diamanté clutch. The sparkle of her clutch, the matching glint of her thin belt and the decorative buckles on her shoes glistened in the fog. The same fog probably frizzled her hair as she followed Tom to his squad car. The unspoken curfew in Scarlet Falls meant the Historical Society Gala was being held in late afternoon. Amelia had explained it was a formal event where guests would dress for evening. The fog almost made it so.

  A blast of heat met her when Tom opened the door.

  “I’m cold natured,” he explained when she adjusted the vents away from her face. Her feet didn’t mind.

  Her toes were almost warm by the time they arrived. Tom cruised as slowly as she usually did by the old Victorian. His sad eyes seemed to take in each curtained window as they passed before the squad car looped around the corner to park.

  She waited for the deputy to open the door, but it opened while Tom was still crossing in front of the hood. The chill of an early November afternoon warred with unexpected heat in William Constantine’s gaze.

  “You decided to attend,” the sheriff said, holding the door. His voice didn’t register approval or disapproval. But even the cool fog didn’t mask the appreciation in his eyes.

  She rose with the unnecessary help of his hand on her arm. The chivalry made her shiver because it brought his fingers to her bare skin beneath the shawl.

  Amelia had been right. Scarlet Falls was dressed for evening in the late afternoon light, but the steady stream of tuxedos, suits and dresses down the walk lit by topiary fairy lights blurred around the edges of her perceptions.

  Because Constantine was in evening attire, too.

  He wore a black slim cut tuxedo and a startlingly white tailored shirt with a crisp black tie against his lightly stubbled chin. She looked at his usual rumple of hair and swallowed. In contrast with the perfection of his suit, his hair was even more touchable. Her fingers curled against handfuls of fringe from her shawl.

  “That color…” Constantine began. She straightened to stand beside him. He looked down, sweeping her with his pale blue eyes from head to sparkly foot. “You should always wear it.”

  Maddy knew lavender made her red hair vivid and her pale skin translucent. She knew her eyes looked bright green against its soft muted shade. But she was struck by Constantine saying so. She wasn’t surprised he would notice because he noticed everything. She was surprised that he would say it. That he would pull her closer to his side and tuck her carefully manicured hand into the crook of his arm with possessive gallantry.… That was the surprise.

  She swallowed against the thrill of his compliment. She vowed not to max out her credit cards buying all the lavender in Boston. Even if she could no longer imagine him having anything to do with Gracie’s death, she couldn’t ignore the other complications between them. She needed her composure to survive and Constantine constantly tore it down—reason enough to resist the chemistry between them.

  They followed the crowd by the topiary glow in the trailing fog to the Carriage House. When they made it through the doors, they were greeted by an artificial night created by the ivy-covered windows and the fog. Lit only by the distant chandelier, flickering candles and twinkle lights, the Carriage House floor was magically elegant with dust motes swirling around modern skirts and designer shoes.

  They mingled for a long time. Maddy received numerous compliments on her work. Constantine was treated like a minor celebrity. Everyone wanted to talk to the man who kept them safe. Maddy couldn’t blame them. He was particularly attractive in his tuxedo and maybe a little more accessible without the badge.

  The dance was inevitable.

  Probably from the moment he’d first touched her weeks ago.

  Fear was still there, a distant warning throb beneath her skin, but anticipation threatened to banish it for the next brush of his fingers, the next dark glance, the next…

  His hand slid to her back where bare silken skin was exposed in a soft chiffon V. His other hand held hers, not tightly, not fiercely, but still stronger than necessary to lead her onto the floor.

  There was a chasm between them—mysteries about what came before or what would come after—but their bodies leaped it eagerly to come together, swaying to the vibration of cello strings.

  People watched them. The dead girl’s sister and the sheriff who had yet to crack the case on display, but the breath that mingled from their warm lips and the heat that rose from their bodies in contact didn’t seem to care.

  “I wasn’t going to come tonight,” Maddy confessed.

  “What changed your mind?” Constantine asked.

  Being warned away.… Being tired of near constant trepidation.… Wanting to be near you in a way that wasn’t tainted by death or pain.

  “Well, I found this amazing dress,” Maddy said instead.

  “Yes. It is,” Constantine agreed. His eyes were only warmed by candlelight. That was what made them gleam. But the appreciation in them seemed warm just the same.

  “I’m a very practical person,” Maddy replied.

  “Boots and lace,” Constantine summed up.

  Her cheeks went hot though she knew he couldn’t be talking about the lace she wore that he couldn’t see. As they spoke, they moved to the music.

  His body was athletic and graceful. Their bodies together seemed to have a natural skill they might not have achieved with other partners. They danced as if their moves were anticipated—met and matched—with some sixth sense of connection that caused her skin to tingle in the same way it had when he’d touched her intimately.

  With Constantine, a mere dance caused her nipples to harden and heat to rise, as if they were headed inexorably closer to a much more intimate connection.

  Maddy forced her thoughts away from Constantine and her lace underthings. She became aware of other things. Mrs. Jesham stood in a dark corner knitting. Samuel Creed and Trinity danced several couples away but both glanced frequently her way. All the way across the room near one of the locked double doors, a woman stood in a severe black dress, the sheen of its fabric unfamiliar, the cut of its sleeves and skirt retro to the extreme. In the shadowy room and the flickering light, she almost seemed to glare at the people around her. Then at Maddy most of all.

  It was only when Gibbons unexpectedly appeared, arching his back and hissing in the woman’s direction, that Maddy realized something was wrong.

  Mrs. Jesham cried out and dropped her knitting.

  People stopped dancing.

  And the glaring woman turned away from the cat and walked away…straight through the unopened Carriage House doors.

  Maddy pulled her hand from Constantine’s.

  She blinked. The unease she’d felt looking at shadows in her dressing table’s mirror was back, skittering familiar icy fingers down her spine.

  Now, Mrs. Jesham glared at Maddy, retrieving her knitting and resuming her click-clicking, but with much more purpose. Her hands griped the needles with white-knuckled ferocity.

  Trinity Chadwick Creed had walked over to the spot where the strange woman had been. From there she looked to Maddy and back again while everyone else resumed their dancing.

  “It’s okay. Tom will find your cat and take him home,” Constantine said.

  He hadn’t seen the woman. Or he had seen her and was pretending that he hadn’t.

  “I need some fresh air,” Maddy said.

  She was a practical woman. She’d never believed in ghost stories or fairy tales. When her mother had died, that had been the end. She’d never gone
looking for more than the warmth of sunshine on her face and the feel of growing petals between her fingers.

  Gracie had wanted more.

  Now Maddy had seen a woman in a dress not-of-this-century disappear impossibly through thick oak planks. Fresh air wouldn’t help her. How could she ever forgive herself for telling Gracie she was wrong?

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Constantine found her outside after he’d retrieved her shawl. The afternoon was waning. The fog had thickened until it was a heavy moist touch against her face. It caused the sheriff’s hair to dampen and curl over his forehead.

  Maddy reached and brushed the heavy fall back from his hooded eyes. Her move was rewarded with a sudden movement of his hand reaching for hers. He grasped it and used the unexpected leverage of its possession to pull her forward. It was almost a stumble, nearly a fall, but she was suddenly, awkwardly against him. His broad firm chest was a startling press of pleasure against her breasts. His arms stiffened around her, embracing but not cradling her. Claiming maybe. Or giving in to a need to be close.

  But there was tension in his body, in his touch. A tension that said he rejected the softness of her body against his even as he desired it. He’d lost someone he cared about to violence. So had she. But neither of them was looking for succor or healing because that meant they would be open to the possibility of more pain.

  When his head dipped her breath caught and her lips opened. She whimpered against his mouth, hungrily taking his tongue. Against the chill of the wet air their connection heated until the exhalation of their breathing between deep tasting kisses seemed much like steam rising up, up into the November sky.

  He tasted like rich bitter espresso and a hint of mint. The rich coffee had also scented his skin. She breathed deeply of the warm fragrance and licked the taste of sweet cream off the vulnerable interior of his lips.

  He countered with hungrier plunges, plundering her strawberry lip gloss until her mouth was tender and swollen and sensitized to the slight scrape of the dirty blond stubble on his face.

  She reached for him to hold on. She was crushed to his chest by his muscular arms, but she needed to hold on to his lapels with her own strength, keeping herself on her feet with fistfuls of fabric even as he made her head light and her knees weak.

  “Sheriff, the cat is climbing the walls in here. We could use your help,” Tom called from behind the ivy around the entry doors.

  The interruption broke them apart. Maddy jerked back several stumbling steps. Of its own volition, one hand covered her well-kissed lips in a futile attempt to hold his heat there longer.

  “Go home, Maddy. Just…go home,” Constantine said before he turned to heed Tom’s call.

  He looked relieved to put distance between them. He also looked shattered. His lips were swollen, his hair more rumpled than ever and his eyes dark.

  He didn’t mean for her to go home to her little rented craftsman cottage. He meant for her to go home to Boston.

  The rejection rankled, but it didn’t hurt. She’d seen him lick the taste of her lip gloss left on his lips. She’d seen his darkened eyes sweep her from head to foot one last time before he’d turned away. She’d seen how his gaze had lingered on her flushed cleavage. Seconds only, but long enough.

  She watched him head back inside the Carriage House with no intention of going away.

  “You need to be careful, Maddy,” Amelia Glass materialized out of the topiary grouping near the path to the old Victorian. Her glasses were gone. Her hair was down around her shoulders. Damp, but young and modern. Something niggled. Some recognition that hadn’t been there before. “I worked with your stepsister investigating paranormal activity. You might have seen me at her funeral.”

  Maddy remembered now. Tonight Amelia wore a simple but elegant sheath in a brocade fabric that contrasted with the simplicity of her hair. Its brilliant jewel tones went strikingly well against the sleek chestnut strands. At the funeral, she’d been in black and Maddy had been less than observant. She’d been blinded by grief.

  “I keep getting that advice,” Maddy replied.

  “It’s good advice, but it won’t help you against Evelyn Chadwick Wildes,” Amelia said.

  “Who?” Maddy asked.

  “She’s here. Especially here. But she follows him wherever he goes. It’s the house and other belongings she treasured while she was alive. She lived here, but worse than that, a chest was found when the old Chadwick estate, Hillhaven, burned. The chest holds Evelyn’s remains. Sheriff Constantine holds the chest. He’s kept it with him since it was found. He’s guarding it. Keeping it. Under her influence, he’s hoarding her bones like a dragon with a cave of gold.”

  “Hoarding her bones?” Maddy said. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears and feel chilly fingers on her spine playing up and down each vertebra with insidious taps. “That’s crazy.” She meant the accusation, but also any man who would treasure moldering bones.

  “Well, yes. It is. But it isn’t his fault. He’s being compelled. They can do that. Especially if there’s room in someone for them to creep in. A loss. Especially a lost love. Sheriff Constantine is the perfect host,” Amelia said.

  “Host…” Maddy repeated. All she could do was echo Amelia’s words. She couldn’t accept them. Just as she’d never been able to accept any of the supernatural occurrences that Gracie had wanted to share.

  “He’s being used and doesn’t know it. But your question should be how much power does she have over him? How much control? She doesn’t want to be discovered. She doesn’t want to be sent back to the grave. Gracie paid the price for trying to get evidence of Evelyn’s ghost on film. Are you next?” Amelia warned.

  “I don’t take photographs,” Maddy said.

  “Evelyn won’t risk losing him. If you come between them, she’ll target you next.”

  “Ms. Glass…I don’t believe in ghosts,” Maddy insisted.

  “That was true…once…but now you’ve seen her with your own eyes.”

  Maddy automatically took the small phone from the woman when she held it out. On its screen was a dark picture of the Carriage House dance floor as it had been a half hour ago. Couples dancing. Gibbons hissing.

  And the vague outline of a woman in the shadows.

  The photograph was like many Gracie had shown Maddy. Indistinct. Easily dismissed as fakery. But this time Maddy had seen a much clearer version of what the photograph showed.

  A ghost digitally captured on the screen.

  She could smell the fog-dampened ivy around them. She could feel her delicate heels sinking into the crushed stone of the walkway. Goose bumps rose on her chilled skin.

  Those things were all real. All tangible. Surely what Amelia Glass proposed…

  “A ghost didn’t kill my stepsister,” Maddy said.

  “Of course not. But a spirit’s influence might have caused…someone…to kill her.”

  Maddy’s pulse pounded harder. She could almost feel the throb in her cold wrists. She could still taste Constantine’s lips, could still feel the brush of his tongue. She’d tried to distrust him. She’d tried to imagine him a suspect. But she’d long since seen him, felt him, in a different way.

  The idea of a man treasuring a chest of bones was horrifying and unbelievable.

  “Ms. Glass. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’m finished dancing for the afternoon.”

  “Call me Amelia. Gracie was my friend and colleague. We each had our own reasons for what we hoped and believed.… And Maddy…it’s evening. Night is falling. You should go home. You should go back to Boston. We’re watching him. We’re watching Evelyn. It might not be too late to save him,” Amelia was already backing away toward the Carriage House.

  Maddy turned in the other direction on numb legs. Numb from the cold and her disintegrating beliefs. She wouldn’t go looking for her clutch to call a cab. She didn’t look for Tom. She went instead down the path where Amelia had been moments before. She went toward the old Victorian with its curtained wind
ows.

  She was too practical to believe anything based on photographs and phantoms. She needed more tangible proof.

  It was high time she went inside the house that had been calling to her since she’d first arrived in town.

  Chapter Eight

  She had never worked on the walkway leading to the main house. Fallen branches, weeds and skeletal fingers of forsythia gone wild stretched out to pull at her skirt and trail scratchily along her skin. Too bad she hadn’t thought to bring her utility cart to the Gala. The thought reminded her of Deputy Smith and the glint of silver in his eyes. She hadn’t seen him tonight. He hadn’t been at the Gala. Had he followed his own advice or was he elsewhere, watching her and waiting the approaching night?

  Maddy pulled her shawl tighter around her arms to keep the fringe from tangling in brambles and briars and to ward against the chill of increasing fog. She tasted its metallic bite on her chilled lips. It threatened to chase away the lingering flavor of Constantine’s delicious lips. Would he go looking for her once Gibbons was caught? If he realized she’d decided to visit his house alone, she might not have much time.

  Maddy stumbled from the raggedy path into the small clearing of back lawn she’d seen so many times in the picture she kept on her bedside table. The sun had finally set. Night had fallen. The lights on the street were too distant to fully illuminate her way even augmented by the vehicle headlights as guests left the Gala in a steady stream. Soon the party would be completely over and she’d be even more isolated and alone.

  Empty windows stared down at her with glinting panes. Did any of the curtains flutter or sigh? Did anything move in the deep interior shadows behind the glass?

  Bones.

  Was she really going to go inside in search of a chest full of bones?

  She stepped up the stairs on the back stoop, very aware that her stepsister had photographed the very spot before she’d been killed. Maddy paused and looked in the direction where Gracie must have stood.

  If not bones, what did she expect to find? Some evidence that Gracie had been here before her or some evidence that she hadn’t?