“I’ve never seen her before.” The image didn’t fade away until they both started to get dressed. “Looks like she’s leaving us be.”
“Good.”
“She looked a bit upset at us,” Jen said.
“Why?” Sudden knowledge dawned in his eyes. “The ghost doesn’t think it’s proper that we had sex in her attic.”
Had sex, Jen thought, realizing again what she’d allowed to happen between them. She didn’t want to have sex with Adam; Jen wanted to make love with him. She wanted to be loved by him. Whether or not her sister was in town to steal him away, she wanted to love him.
Yet what just happened between them had been sex, just sex, and her shame overwhelmed her. It hadn’t felt right because it wasn’t right.
Good, quick, fulfilling, but not right.
Jen frowned, shaking away the disquieting thoughts. It would be so easy to love this man. “She stopped over by the pile of boxes in the corner. I think she wants us to look in them.”
“Which corner?”
“She’s hovering over those old boxes by the broken down chest of drawers,” Jen replied. “Why didn’t you tell me you had ghosts haunting your attic?”
“I didn’t know.”
And Jen hadn’t sensed her. Never before had she not sensed the presence of spirits. “Well, she’s here now, so I guess we should go see what she wants us to see.”
Adam watched with a regretful expression warming the edges of his eyes, as she rearranged her mussed up clothes and walked toward him. He waved his hand in a sweeping gesture, bowing at the waist, and said, “Ladies first.”
“You’re such a gentleman.” She moved to stand beside him, looking into his eyes. Deciding to let go of the last few minutes, she said, “Are you afraid to face the big, bad ghost?”
“Sorry.” His laughter warmed her soul. “Ladies with psychic abilities should go first.”
“Not much better.” Jen smiled. “But I’ll accept it.”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
She reached over and cupped his face. “I just bet you will.”
“I’d rather be on top of you again,” he groaned. “But behind you sounds interesting too.”
“Not in this lifetime,” Jen said. “I’ve tried it.”
Jen froze when he pressed his semi-hard penis into her backside, wrapping his arms around her waist while nibbling in a teasing way at her earlobe. “You’ve never tried it with me.”
“It hurts,” she whispered. “And you’re so much bigger than he was.”
“We’ll see.”
“Bullshit, cowboy.” She laughed. “When you’re willing to reciprocate in kind, then I might consider it.”
“On second thought…”
“I thought you’d change your mind.” Coldness settled into her, pulling her mind off their sexual conversation back to the pissed off ghost. “And you, ma’am, need to give it a rest.”
Adam choked on a breath, swallowing the beginnings of a gruff laugh.
Jen stepped to where the ghost lingered and looked over the spill of cardboard boxes lining the area. She reached toward the nearest one and watched the ghost vision shake its foggy head. Trying one box after another, Jen reached over them and touched the old chest of drawers behind them, and the ghost disappeared.
“She could’ve pointed to the chest first.” Warmth filled Jen’s being as she waited for Adam to move some of the discarded boxes to the side to give them room to pull the old drawers from the dresser. “I saw her head nod. It would’ve been just as easy to see her hand raise up and finger point.”
Adam stopped with the highest drawer half pulled from the piece. “You know something?
“What?”
“None of this is freaking me out.”
Jen frowned.
“That day we met, remember it?” Adam didn’t wait for her to answer him. “I thought I was seeing things when I saw your hair clip hanging in the air. Now you’re seeing pissed off spinster lady ghost in my own attic, and it’s not upsetting me.”
“How do you know she was a spinster?”
“Think about it, honey.” Adam grinned. “We weren’t singing hymns up here earlier.”
“No.” She grinned back toward him. “We definitely weren’t sitting in church.”
“You’re right there, honey.”
“We should look in the dresser before she decides to come back.”
“After you, Jen,” he said, sweeping his hands toward the rugged dresser. “I wonder who she is. Or should I say was?”
Jen looked at him. “No one has ever experienced anything strange up here before?”
“I’ve never heard of anything.” He reached over to play with loose strands of her hair, twisting the locks between his long fingers. “Didn’t you tell me once some people always see ghosts?”
“I sense them,” Jen said as she moved closer to the dresser and grabbed the handle of the top drawer. “Let’s see what’s in this dresser. I’m hoping for a picture of your grandfather Adam.”
“Would you recognize him as your horny ghost if we found one?”
“I might.”
The drawer stuck when she tried to pull it forward, so she plied her fingers inside the opening and pulled with all her might. Adam grabbed the other side of the drawer, and it opened with a squeal.
It was empty.
So was the middle drawer.
“Well,” Jen said to the air. “You’d better not be playing some trick on us, old spinster lady. I’m going to be upset.”
She didn’t expect a response.
She didn’t get one.
“Damn, I think we hit pay dirt,” Adam said. “Look at what she found for us. There has to be something in these papers to prove if your spirit is my great-great-grandfather.”
“You found papers? Be careful with those, they could be worth more than you know.” Looking down at the opened bottom drawer, Jen sat on a well-packed box before pulling out a pile of old yellowed papers. “This stuff is fragile, so be gentle with it. For a historian this is like finding a pirate’s treasure. We can learn so much about the past from these documents.”
Old letters, legal documents, childish drawings, and loose newspaper clippings sat in individual piles an hour later. It wasn’t until they retrieved the last stack of documents from the back of the bottom drawer that they found what they were looking for. Old photographs of a man and woman, sitting in a stiff and unnatural pose, sandwiched on both sides of a young boy and a grinning pre-teen girl greeted their eyes.
“Oh my God,” Jen said as she glanced at one of the pictures. “The man looks just like you. And he looks much like the spirit I saw. Our ghost has to be your Grandfather Adam.”
“Let me see.”
She handed him the picture before reaching for the next one in the pile. A robust, light-haired boy and a tall, blonde girl smiled stiffly into the camera this time, sitting between a severe looking, dark-haired, sad-eyed woman and a beaming man. “He has to be your Grandpa Adam. It’s amazing how much you look like him.”
“But how can you be sure he’s the horny ghost at the saloon?”
“I just know.”
He put the picture down and turned to face her. “But how can you be positive, Jen? Don’t ghosts appear unclear, in a fog or something?”
“He did appear to me that way,” she agreed. “But I know this man is one of the ghosts haunting the saloon. And I think I know now why Grace said he’s here.”
Adam glanced at the picture for a few seconds before shaking his head and dropping it back down on the pile. “It’s because I showed up, looking so much like her lover. But why did she start haunting us now? I’ve been going to Winter Creek since I was a kid. We used to stay there many weekends during the summer months. Why is my appearing a few weeks ago getting Grandpa and Grace all riled up?”
“That’s the million dollar question, Adam.” Jen stood from her sitting position and leaned into the old dresser, staring at the neat sta
cks of historical documents lining the small area. “They asked for our help.”
“Yeah,” he said with a smirk. “With our own handwriting—after getting us all heated up and naked.”
Jen looked over at him, but didn’t comment about the circumstances of their encounters with the ghosts. Remembering those times made her think of their sexual antics a few moments ago, made her body remember how excited and satisfied she was before Adam’s spinster ghost interrupted them.
Oh, stop it, Jennifer Ferguson. You made a promise to the most important person in your life.
She’d messed up once, but she only had six more weeks to go.
No way would she make the same mistake again.
“Remember?”
She frowned toward him, wanting to step into his arms and continue what they’d started earlier. Instead she nodded and said, “I think we need to find out what they want from us. Are they warning us about something going wrong at Winter Creek now? Or do they want something else from us?”
“I don’t think we’ll ever know the answer to those questions, Jen.”
She grinned at him. “I can find out.”
“And how are you going to do it?” Adam smiled and reached over to caress the edge of her cheek. “Are you going to ask them?”
“Yes.” She captured his frozen hand against her cheekbone. “Tonight, I’m going to go to the saloon and ask Grace.”
“I don’t think going there is such a good idea.”
“Grandpa Adam and Grace aren’t going to hurt me,” Jen insisted. Adam’s hand opened and she cradled her head deep into his warm skin. “As long as you stay here, I should be all right.”
“I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re not Adam.” She pulled his hand down and held it tight while staring into his confused expression. “We made a mistake today, having sex. I don’t want to make another one. And you know what will happen if the two of us are in the saloon alone together.”
“What we did earlier,” he said with startling determination, “it wasn’t a mistake to me.”
Jen stared at the man in astonishment. “I don’t know about you, cowboy, but when I make love to you again, I want to remember every single caress, every touch. I don’t want to wake up with you deep inside me two strokes from an orgasm.”
The bewilderment stayed in his eyes for a few seconds before warm desire replaced it. “I get your drift, Jen. It’d be a bitch waking up to feel you tight around my cock, and not have any memory of how it got there.”
“I’m going alone, okay?”
He shook his head. “I’m taking you.”
“No.”
“Jen, I’m not changing my mind.” He gently replaced the pages into the bottom drawer before closing it tight and standing up to face her. “And you might as well get that pissed look off your face. I don’t plan on going into the saloon with you, but I am going to be nearby in case you need me.”
In case you need me, she thought. Jen had been alone so long she’d forgotten what it was like to have someone care. “You promise to stay in the car?”
“Sure,” he agreed. “Unless I hear you screaming for help, I’ll stay away from the saloon.”
“Then let’s go.”
* * * *
Strange quietness settled in Winter Creek the moment Jen walked through the guarded gate, showing her WCHA identification card to the same man who’d stopped her a few days before. The silence didn’t upset her. Some people would say it was the quiet of the dead, but Jen didn’t sense any unusual beings patrolling down Main Street.
She entered the saloon a few minutes later and moved to the center of the room. Nothing unusual spoke to her, no strange sounds or smells assaulted her senses, just the normal sounds of the October wind blowing in the distance.
“Grace, are you here?” Jen spoke in a whisper as she moved through the bar area to the back room, stopping in the middle of the cluttered space. “What about you Grandpa Adam? I know who you are now. Your grandson and I just saw a picture of you at the ranch house. We found some stuff in the attic. You look a lot like my Adam.”
She listened with all her senses, opening her mind and ability to the heavy air around her. “I sense you need help. Or is Winter Creek in danger? I think maybe it is the town. I’ve had… I need your help.”
A chill penetrated her as an icy hand settled onto her shoulders. “Grace, is that you?”
Opening her mind to the spirit, Jen stood quiet and waited for her response. The bitter chill moved through her upper body before dropping down to her legs. She could almost feel Grace taking over as her mind blanked out.
Emptiness.
A moment, an hour, Jen didn’t know how long had gone by before she woke up in front of the mirror, feeling a slight fear. A delicate icy touch brushed against her cheek, fading away in a second. “Grace?”
“Mirror,” a female’s disembodied voice whispered. “Look.”
Jen did as she was told and traced her finger over the individual letters of the word Help. One word leaped out at her, MURDER, with a just as bewildering question under it, WHO KILLED US?
“Grace, are you telling me you were murdered? Were you and Adam murdered?”
“Yes,” whispered in the wind.
“And you want Adam and me to find out who killed you?”
No answer came to this question.
“I don’t know how we can help you, Grace.” Sadness entered her system at her great-great-aunt’s request. She wanted to help, but how could she possibly solve a murder from over a hundred years ago? “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“Danger,” the voice hissed. “Winter Creek.”
“I sense the danger.” Jen turned toward the Chinese wall and frowned. “But what does your death have to do with Winter Creek’s problems now? I need more help from you and Adam. You’re trapped on this side, aren’t you? I want to help free your souls, but I’ll need your help to do it.”
The disembodied finger touched her cheek again, pressing her face to turn toward the mirror. Her glance fell onto the longest sentence written in her handwriting. Someone who should love you wants to hurt you.
“Is this the sentence you want me to concentrate on, Grace?” Jen didn’t wait for a response. “Do you know who wants to hurt me?”
Warmth filtered slowly back into the room, sending the uneasiness of the last few minutes from her mind. Grace was gone. Leaving Jen with even more unanswerable questions than before her arrival here.
She should’ve listened to Adam and not come here tonight. But maybe he could shed some light on the problem.
Jen left the saloon and ran toward the front gate. She slowed down to a walk when she spied Adam leaning against the hood of his truck, hat clamped tight in his fists.
“I was ready to go in and make sure you were all right.” He slammed his hat back on his head and reached for her, pulling her chilled body hard to his front. “You’re freezing. What did the son of a bitch do to you this time?”
“I’m fine, Adam.”
“Like hell, you’re fine.” His hand rubbed soft down her back, cupping her bottom for a brief second before retracing the path up to her shoulders. “I knew you shouldn’t have gone in there.”
“They were murdered.”
“What?”
“I’m cold.” Jen forced her body away from his warm touch and walked to the passenger side of the truck. “I need to get home. My grandfather has information about his family. It might help us.”
“Yeah, you better get into the truck,” Adam said, reaching over to open her door. “You need to get warmed up. You’re shaking.”
“I’ll be okay.”
He didn’t say anything more as he turned the heat up in the truck and backed out of the parking lot. Jen looked out the window, ignoring his questions and concerned glances her way, as he drove the long hour back to Helena. Her apartment building appeared in front of her before she looked at him.
“You are going
to talk to me now,” he demanded. “I’m not used to my women ignoring me for a whole hour. It’s bad for my ego.”
“Oh, am I your woman?”
He stared at his hands, hiding his expression from her. “If you want to be. Yes, you are.”
Her sister’s smirking face came into her mind then, the way she’d looked when Jen had caught her underneath her ex-fiancé six years ago. Sam had disappointed Jen. She had thought that he loved her, wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and only her. But like all the other men she had thought she loved—who she thought loved her—he succumbed to Kimberley’s sexy come-on. Would Adam be the same? Would she catch Adam having sex with her sister too?
Or would he be the one man for her?
“My grandfather always says there is one man for every woman,” she said, turning her psychic mind toward him. “Are you that one man for me, Adam Craine?”
“I…don’t know,” he said.
She stared hard at him, forcing him to glance again at his hands which were clamped around the steering wheel. But before he looked away, she spied a slew of emotions radiating out of his mind. Lust and desire mixed with confusion, and love.
Love, she sensed, not afraid to speak the word in her mind. An answering love like the emotion she was beginning to feel for him.
“I think you’re going to be meeting the rest of my family soon. I think my sister may be in town.” Jen had to take a chance that Adam was the one. “I hope you’re ready.”
“What?” His smile, warm and sweet, showed his nervousness. “I already met your dad and brother, and your grandfather, how many more are there?”
“Just two,” she whispered. “My mother and my sister Kimberley.”
“Your sister’s name is Kim?”
“Kimberley,” Jen said while exiting the truck. “My mother insisted we be called by our proper names, Jennifer and Kimberley. I rebelled against it, Kimberley didn’t.”
Adam followed her out of the truck and led her to the dark door of her one story apartment, the last unit on the left of the long, narrow building. “Why do you need to know my sister’s name anyway?”
“No reason,” he said. “Except the bitch from the hotel-spa up a ways from Winter Creek has the same name.”
Forgotten Memories Page 16