The Unmistakable Scent of Gardenias (Haunted Hearts Series Book 6)

by Denise Moncrief

  “I know you’ll tell me about anything unusual you discover.” Charlotte shoved a large lump of authoritative demand into her request hoping Hunter would decide to be cooperative for a change.

  His small, almost imperceptible nod didn’t give Charlotte much comfort that he would tell her anything.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sophia pushed the hair out of her eyes and glanced around her as soon as she stepped out of Dylan’s truck. Ever since he had told her the number of men who had claimed to be Les Wakefield, the Manor had seemed even creepier. On the drive from the highway to the house, the overarching limbs of the oak trees seemed to sway closer to the ground, dragging their wispy clumps of moss across the top of Dylan’s truck. The weeds infesting the gravel track seemed to reach higher as if their spindly tendrils wanted to curve around them and swallow them into the Wakefield soil.

  “Are you sure it’s all right for us to be here?”

  She was kind of hoping it wasn’t. Then she could object, and they could leave. Only Dylan probably wouldn’t leave. She’d probably end up sitting in the cab of his truck all night while he nosed around.

  “Yes, I have permission to be here.”

  Contrary to her previous thoughts, she was relieved.

  Mixed feelings. That’s what she was experiencing. Investigate the manor house or run. Build a new relationship with Dylan or run. She crossed her arms over her chest as if the stance could protect her from something sinister, unsure whether it was her not-quite-so-dead feelings for Dylan or her intense curiosity about the house that frightened her the most. The Manor drew a person in almost like it was a living thing.

  “Are you sure it’s safe to be out here?” With you. Is it safe to be out here with you?

  Dylan hesitated. “No.” For once, the truth tumbled out of his mouth.

  “Well, at least you’re being honest.”

  He lifted a toolbox from the bed of the truck and pointed toward a trailer that had been placed on the property. “Home away from home.”

  The trailer didn’t seem big enough to house two people. “Are you sure—”

  “Do all of your questions begin with are you sure?”

  She blinked at him and sighed. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Ah ha. So you can say something else.” He wagged a finger at her. “You were being contrary.”

  She closed the gap between them and grabbed his finger. “And you were being a jerk.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I know.”

  The memory of their not-so-fake kiss roared through her brain and made her nervous system bounce with renewed energy. She stared over his shoulder to keep from staring at him, hoping to hide her racing emotions. A full moon had bounced into the night sky, gleaming from a small patch visible through the trees surrounding the plantation house.

  When she turned her attention back to Dylan, something fearsome flashed in his eyes. Perhaps he was recalling the kiss as well. It had been sweet and powerful and oh-so-familiar. Enough to make her ache for the way things had been before he screwed everything up.

  “There’s a bedroom in the rear of the trailer and the seating area in the front converts to a pull out bed. You can have the bedroom. It’s more comfortable.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, please take the bedroom. I’m sure.” He crossed the yard to the trailer and jammed his key into the lock.

  Tension was coiling in her belly like a tightly wound spring. She needed to talk to him about the kiss. Too much…passion, maybe…tangled around them when their lips met. That’s the way it had always been with them. Being alone with him in the trailer could be a very good thing or it could finish off what was left of her heart. Either way, something intense was bound to happen in such close quarters.

  After they entered the trailer, he set his travel bag on the small kitchen dinette table and she dropped hers on the seat next to it. “Well, this is vintage.”

  He laughed, but his laughter sounded brittle, easily bent and broken, like a dried-out twig. The tension revved up another notch.

  “The thing was built in the 90’s. Tacky. That’s what I’d call it.”

  She joined him in his feeble laughter. “Yeah. It’s pretty tacky.” She ran her finger across the tabletop. “As long as it’s clean.”

  “It should be. Since it hasn’t been used in about nine or ten months, I hired a service to clean it.”

  Their unspoken conversation was about anything but the trailer or its lack of modern interior design or how clean it was. She knew it, and she was well aware that he knew it too. They were dancing around the subject of the kiss. Part of her loved the dance. The other part of her feared it.

  She checked the time on her cellphone. “It’s still early.”

  “I brought a bottle of wine.”

  A little wine went a long way for her. She said and did things when she was tipsy that she usually lived to regret in the morning. Maybe she should have found somewhere else to stay, found someone else who would keep her safe overnight.

  Safe from Brandon Wakefield.

  Safe from Dylan.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Sounds good. You got anything besides paper cups and plates in this metal death trap?” She began scrounging around in the cupboards over the sink.

  He nudged her shoulder and pointed at a cabinet, and she pulled two mismatched drinking glasses off the shelf.

  “Guess these will have to do.” She glanced up and smiled at him as she set the glasses on the table. Then she nodded toward the bottle. “Open it up.”

  Sophia slipped into the bench seat on the other side of the table, and Dylan pulled out the chair nearest him. Once he had slid her glass toward her, she took one sip and then kicked off her shoes before stretching her legs out lengthwise on the bench and leaning her back against the bulkhead.

  The moon shot fingers of light through the blinds on the window next to her and settled moonbeams on his head. The glow lit up his hair and picked up strands of gold. She’d always loved his hair, loved running her fingers through it.

  Stop it. You can’t think this way. You’ve only had one sip of wine and you’re little voice is already talking nonsense. Push the wine away. Right now.

  When she tilted the glass sideways, the light played off the red liquid, making it glitter like a precious gem. She took another sip of wine and attempted to make small talk. “This is good.”

  “Not bad for cheap wine, huh?”

  She shook her head. Sophia only knew enough about wine to know what tasted good. She would never be a wine connoisseur.

  He moved his glass in circles on the tabletop, his eyes downcast. “We should talk about it, you know.”

  Her insides jerked. “Talk about what?” Her response tumbled out of her lips like a drunk stumbling out of a bar on Bourbon Street.

  He lifted his eyes to meet hers.

  She was about to tell him it meant nothing. Just a pretense. A tactic conceived in the heat of the moment. But he cut her off with the truth.

  “I wasn’t pretending.”

  Her pulse raced. She hadn’t believed that he had been. “You have no right…”

  “No, I don’t.”

  She gulped another swig of wine. Words. She needed a few now, but nothing that she should say made it past the lump in her throat. The words she wanted to say cavorted in the back of her mind, stirring her feelings to a fever pitch.

  I love you. I still love you. After all you did to me. You still get to me.

  “I know you don’t want to talk about it. I’m not going to force it. But I want you to know I’m really, really sorry about everything.”

  Something about the way he made his final statement left a swirly, unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach. Like his tone contradicted his declaration. Was it a lie? Did he believe he had an excuse for his behavior?

  She ran her fingers through her hair. “I’m sorry, Dylan. I want to believe you. But you know I can never trust you.”

 
There it was, the big, fat elephant in the room between them, a bigger elephant than the stupid kiss.

  His eyes flashed with fire. “Trust goes both ways, Sophia.”

  His comment had the impact of pushing her back against her seat. He couldn’t be serious. The trust issues should all be on her side of the negotiation table.

  “I never cheated on you, Dylan.” Her sharp retort was meant to draw blood.

  He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. “No, I don’t think you did. But you didn’t tell me the truth either.”

  “About what?” She searched her memory. Was there anything she hadn’t told him? They’d shared everything. Well, almost everything.

  Then revelation socked her in the gut. She’d never told him about the accident… But that wasn’t her story to tell.

  Sophia stared at her half-finished glass of wine. It no longer tempted her. The portion she’d already drank soured on her volatile stomach. “I’m exhausted. I think I’m going to get ready for bed.”

  Rushing away to spend several sleepless hours before she could drift off didn’t appeal to her, but remaining in Dylan’s presence appealed to her even less. She rose to her full height and attempted to stretch her frame another half inch. Stand tall. That’s what her mother always advised her.

  “Good night, Dylan.”

  “Sure, Soph. Run away. You can avoid it tonight, but one day we’re going to have to face the truth.”

  Anger collided with reason. She swirled on him. “The truth? How do you have the nerve to talk about the truth? You cheated on me, remember? I can’t believe I even considered the possibility that things might not be over…” She popped her hand over her mouth.

  A broad smirk covered his face. “Go to bed, Sophia. Maybe tomorrow we can continue this discussion. I’d like to talk about this in the light of day anyway.”

  She glanced out the window. The night had turned to pitch. She doubted if enough light would ever penetrate the veil of limbs covering the plantation to reveal the truth, whatever truth Dylan thought she was hiding from him.

  Before she slammed the bedroom door behind her, she caught a glimpse of him. To her astonishment, panic had wiped the previous smirk off his face.

  ****

  Dylan rolled over to avoid the lump in the sofa seat. He yanked the thin blanket over his shoulders and wiggled some more. Why did it have to be so blasted cold in the trailer? The air conditioner had been set to a frigid temperature to offset the humidity. June weather in Louisiana usually produced an endless cycle of running the air at full blast and then turning it off to keep from freezing.

  He groaned when his brain went into overdrive. It was useless to try to keep from dwelling on his argument with Sophia. He’d really stepped in deep poop. She was probably on the other side of the bedroom door renewing every single hostile emotion she’d ever harbored against him. Whatever romantic feelings the kiss had resurrected had withered with his demands for the truth. Why couldn’t he just let it go?

  Besides, she seemed clueless as to what he was talking about. Maybe Audrey had lied to him about the accident. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d lied to him. Funny. It seemed she was still lying to him from wherever she was.

  He’d almost finished the thought with from the grave.

  No. He didn’t believe Audrey was dead. She was probably laughing her head off. Probably knew his was still a person of interest to the police. She probably loved that.

  Another bump crawled from under the bedroom door. So Sophia hadn’t managed to fall asleep yet. She was still moving around in the tight space that barely qualified as a bedroom. Pacing maybe. The temptation to get up and move back and forth in time with her pacing hit him hard.

  Wait, if she was awake, maybe she was waiting for him to… No, he didn’t dare finish that thought. Hope was not his for the asking simply because he wanted things to be hopeful. To be different. To go back to the way they used to be before Audrey.

  He pushed up from the sofa and propped on one elbow, listened for more movement on the other side of the door. Another thump. He shifted his legs off the side of the sofa and placed his feet on the floor. The cold of the dated vinyl flooring penetrated his socks. He straightened his shoulders. It was only a few paces to the bedroom door. He raised his hand to knock, and the door flung open.

  She pulled him into the bedroom. “Come here.”

  His heart lurched in his chest. Surely she wasn’t suggesting they sleep together? He glanced at the bed.

  She grabbed his chin and forced him to turn his head. “Look out the window.”

  His gaze focused on the manor house where a fire blazed underneath the near corner of the front porch. His legs moved before his mind ordered them to do so. From the nightstand, he withdrew a handgun.

  Her eyes widened. “Dylan, don’t you think—”

  “Brandon could have set that fire. Lock the door behind me, and don’t come out no matter what. Call the sheriff’s office if something happens. Okay?”

  She stared at him, her limbs and her lips apparently frozen.

  “Sophia? Promise me you’ll stay in the trailer.”

  She nodded.

  He tucked the gun into his waistband, rushed into the kitchen, and pulled the extinguisher out of the cubbyhole where he kept it. When he exited the trailer, he waited a second. The click of the lock setting met his ears.

  Everything, every little noise intensified, yet his vision seemed to blur. The smoke from the fire burned his eyes, and he swiped at the tears with his free hand. Twisting this way and that, he scanned the area around the house, anticipating an attack from behind. When nothing happened, he set about dousing the fire. A hard thing to do with his body angled to keep an eye behind him and his attention on the blaze.

  He put it out without much effort, dropped the spent extinguisher to the ground, and then swirled to face potential menace. Still no one emerged from the shadows to attack him. He kicked the heavy extinguisher underneath the house so it couldn’t be used as a weapon.

  “Come out, Wakefield. I know you’re here.”

  The wind keened through the limbs of the trees and whistled beneath the eaves. The manor house seemed to heave and moan and sway toward him. The place was cursed. The idea jumped out of his subconscious and did a crazy dance in his head. Before he could decide on his next move, bright pinpoints of light gathered on the path at the side of the house. He blinked at the intensity and used his hand to shield his eyes.

  The light formed into a shape, a floating thing that glided up the path toward him. Stopped a few feet away. Then retraced its path.

  “What is that?” Sophia’s whispered question seemed to ring unnaturally in his ear.

  “I thought I told you to stay in the trailer.”

  “You’re not my boss.”

  “Sophia—”

  “Or my boyfriend.”

  He whipped around to face her. “Aw, come on!”

  She placed her hands on her hips, and her robe slid off one shoulder. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  A floral stench invaded his nostrils. He gagged and pinched his fingers over his nose.

  Sophia spluttered next to him and then pulled the front panel of her robe over her face. “That smell is rank.”

  “It’s gardenias again, right?”

  She nodded. “I hate that smell.”

  A loud bang drew their attention back to the apparition. The mass of light vanished through the wall on the side of the house.

  “Did you see that? Right through the wall.” He jerked, but the frenetic motion couldn’t quite dislodge the heebie jeebies that had swept over him.

  He curved his fingers around her upper arm and moved a few paces closer to the house, dragging her with him. Yeah, he’d asked that she stay in the trailer, but at that moment, he was glad that she’d rebelled and followed him outside. He’d never tell her that though.

  Dylan pointed toward the spot where the light had seeped through the side of t
he building. “There used to be a door there.”

  “Really? That’s creepy.” Her breathing rasped near his ear. “I don’t believe in ghosts.” Her pronouncement seemed to come out of nowhere, but he was sure they had both been contemplating the idea that the phenomenon was paranormal.

  “I didn’t used to…”

  “Surely, someone is pranking us.” Sophia didn’t sound as if she believed what she’d just said. “Should we call the sheriff?”

  Her question jolted him to a new level of awareness. Dylan glanced at her and then released her arm. “What can she do?”

  Sophia glared at him. Angry eyes stabbed him in the heart. “I’m starting to think you might be the one doing the pranking.”

  “This might have been a prank, but I didn’t do it.” He grabbed her hand. “Come on. Let’s go back to the trailer. It must be eighty-five degrees tonight, but I can’t shake the chill out of my bones. A person shouldn’t need a jacket in June.”

  To his surprise, her hand tightened around his.

  They were almost to the trailer when the churn of wheels on gravel traveled up the drive from the highway. He yanked her along until they were inside, barely closing the door before a car came into view from out of the shadows cast by the oak trees. Dylan doused the lights and peeked between the blinds. She leaned into him and tilted her head so that they stared together toward the drive.

  She gasped. “That’s him.”

  So Brandon Wakefield had emerged from hiding.

  Dylan’s brain seemed to freeze. Inaction caused all sorts of problems, but he couldn’t seem to focus on the right thing to do.

  Sophia nudged him. “We have to get out of here.” Her fears hissed beneath her breath.

  Brandon drove his car up to the house as close as he could without driving onto the front porch. He exited the vehicle and stood at the bottom of the steps.

  Sophia leaned even closer to Dylan if that was possible. “What’s he doing?”

  Dylan didn’t know what Brandon was doing any more than Sophia did. “It doesn’t look like he’s noticed my truck.”

  Her voice soared an octave. “Maybe he won’t find us then.”