Possessing Elissa

by Donna Sterling

  He’d had enough of this dream. He wanted to wake up. Now. Wakefulness, however, didn’t come. Beckoning him instead was a deeper, numbing sleep. A forgetful sleep...

  A woman slowly passed him, swept along by the crowd. She was dressed in a tailored black suit and white silk blouse. Her hair, soft and dark as sable, was tied with a black scarf at the nape of her neck and cascaded down her back in smooth curls. Her head was bent; he couldn’t see her eyes, except for the graceful contours of her profile.

  Jesse’s weariness instantly vanished. Elissa.

  His cousin Dean walked beside her. Jesse saw his arm come up around her shoulders. In a possessive way, he realized. As if to announce ownership.

  No, he had to be mistaken. Dean was nothing more than a friend to Elissa. A platonic friend.

  And this, of course, was only a dream.

  As ELISSA SAT in a parlor over Abercorn Street, she felt as if she was smothering. Jesse’s aunt—Dean’s mother—invited everyone after the memorial service to her home on a picturesque square in Savannah. Elissa had accompanied Dean, hoping for a sense of closure, because ever since Jesse’s death had been confirmed, she’d felt oddly hollow. Stricken, as if she’d suffered a terrible loss. It was illogical—she hadn’t known Jesse very well—but she found she couldn’t shake it.

  In fact, her melancholy mushroomed and grew until she could think of little else. Jesse was gone, with no chance of returning to her life. No chance to incite all those visceral emotions that would lay and had otherwise lain dormant. Gone, before she had fully expressed her fury at his neglect. Gone, before she could understand her absolute bewitchment.

  Since his death, every passing day had increased her sense that she was somehow drifting from the right path, separated from her destiny, headed in the wrong direction.

  The funeral hadn’t brought her closure, and looking around, she realized she wouldn’t attain a sense of closure from this gathering, either. Jesse’s family didn’t seem to share the feeling that there was a gaping hole where he should have been. Gossipers exchanged news, sports fans analyzed football plays and business types networked, but not a word was spoken about the man they’d come to mourn. She overheard Dean chatting with a cousin about teaching high school chorus, and then her attention was drawn to the guests behind her. Someone had uttered Jesse’s name and Elissa’s heart was pierced by a pain she hadn’t expected.

  “Of course there isn’t a casket,” one young woman was saying. “After all, there wasn’t actually a body. His remains were cremated...at least, the remains they could find. You know how it is after a plane crash—especially when there’s a lot of passengers involved. From what I heard, the military had to search the jungle for...parts....”

  In sudden need of air, Elissa whirled away. As she shouldered her way toward the open side balcony, someone clamped a hand around her arm. “Elissa, darling.” It was Dean, and an elegant matron with cropped silver hair, a pointed chin and thin lips that looked remarkably like Dean’s. “I’d like you to meet my mother, Muriel Pholey.”

  Elissa struggled to murmur a greeting as sharp blue eyes assessed her. “So, Elissa, at last we meet. Did Jesse’s commanding officer answer all your questions?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he tried.”

  “Did you know Jesse very well?”

  Her throat tightened. “No, not very.”

  “From our conversation, I assumed you’d been... dose to Jesse. You seemed so positive he was alive. So...passionate about it.” Her elegant silver brows arched.

  For a stricken moment, Elissa said nothing. She had been passionate about it. But how could he have visited her? The only rational conclusion she could draw was that his “visit” had been a psychic connection...maybe even at the time of his death. She could accept this possibility; telepathy during a trauma had been documented in hundreds of cases. But the idea of Jesse reaching out to her in distress left her aching. She had refused his last chance at making peace between them. She had sent him to his ever-after without forgiving his neglect; without welcoming him home. “I was mistaken, obviously.”

  “How did you know Jesse?”

  “She met him once, Mother,” Dean snapped. “Just once.”

  Elissa’s glance cut to him in reproach. What would his family think now when she told them Cody was his son? For she intended to tell them; intended for her son to know his paternal relations- It was the least she could do to make amends to Jesse. But then, she hadn’t told Dean of her intention. She realized now that he wouldn’t like it.

  “You met Jesse only once?” said Muriel, her blue eyes gleaming.

  “Her only contact with him was when I introduced them,” said Dean, looking red around the ears. “She’s been my friend for many years. In fact—” he shpped his arm around her “—I’m hoping she’ll be more than a friend.” He smiled at Elissa.

  The air around them suddenly chilled, as if a door had come ajar in the dead of winter. But this was October in the South, a mild October at that. With a shiver, Elissa looked for air-conditioning vents, but found none near enough to cause the dramatic drop in temperature. Crossing her arms to warm herself, she realized that no one else seemed affected.

  Muriel actually appeared warmer than before, her face flushed in patches. “Then, why did Jesse’s attorney ask for her address?”

  “His attorney?” repeated Dean, baffled.

  Everything seemed to slip out of focus. “The waiver I sent,” she whispered. The waiver of paternal status. Jesse had told her he hadn’t signed it, but obviously, he had. Why else would his attorney be contacting her?

  Disappointment, illogical but strong, coursed through her. So he hadn’t wanted Cody, after all. Even in his last-ditch psychic connection with her, Jesse had lied.

  “What had you sent to Jesse?” prompted Muriel, annoyed that she hadn’t heard.

  “Oh, Mother, let’s not discuss boring legalities. Elissa was in the process of transferring some property from Jesse,” Dean lied.

  “Which property?” demanded Muriel. “That place in the Victorian section? He was forever buying old houses.”

  “Uh, no,” replied Elissa.

  “The beach lot on Tybee?”

  “Really, Mother, where’s your famous hospitality?” Dean interjected. “Elissa hasn’t tried your liver pâté yet.”

  “Not the house on Isle of Hope!” cried Muriel. “You didn’t close the deal, did you? Did it bring a good price, at least? That house is a historic landmark. How he came by it I’ll never know. Some underhanded way, you can be sure.”

  “Elissa hasn’t bought the house on Isle of Hope,” Dean assured her. With an agitated glance around, he whispered, “But if she had, Mother, it’s none of your business.”

  “Delia’s business is my business,” she snapped. “I’ve handled her assets for years.” Her glance darted like the tongue of a snake toward a gentle-faced lady with white hair who was chatting contentedly with the preacher. “If only Delia had listened to me,” said Muriel, “she wouldn’t have gone with that Garrett boy in the first place.”

  In an aside to Elissa, Dean muttered, “Jesse’s father.”

  “He forced himself on my sister.” Muriel waited expectantly for Elissa’s reaction.

  But she had heard the story before—from Dean, the morning after her glorious night with Jesse. And later, when she had told Dean of her pregnancy, he had asked with concern, “Did Jesse...force you?”

  Visibly disappointed with her lack of response, Muriel reworded her revelation. “He violated Delia. Brought shame to the family. Oh, he married her in the end—Papa insisted. But the louse didn’t stay. Left Delia holding the bag—or the cradle, I should say. That misbegotten son of hers was exactly like his father. Bad from the minute he was born. He could charm the skirts off the ladies...for his own satisfaction, no matter what the cost to them. I remember the time he broke into the girls’ dormitory. We had the charges dropped.” Darkly, she muttered, “He sprang from bad seed. The blood of
a rapist ran through Jesse’s veins.”

  Elissa didn’t want to listen. Cody had sprung from the same seed. The same blood ran through his veins. Shaken, she leveled Muriel a look as cold as the air that had grown so frigid around them. “I have to go now, Mrs. Pholey. I want to meet with Jesse’s attorney. If you could please tell me his name and address—”

  “Peter Thornton, on River Street,” she said, “but—”

  Blissa, darling, we can’t leave now,” protested Dean.

  “No need for you to leave, Dean. I have personal business to attend to.”

  He frowned, looking affronted. “But we drove together in my car. How will you—”

  “It’s only a few blocks to River Street. I’ll walk.”

  “Well, if you insist. But call me when you’re finished. If we leave for home by five, we’ll be there around eight.”

  “You can go back without me. I have a friend in Savannah I’d like to visit.” It was a lie, but Elissa felt desperate to be alone. “I’ll take the train home.”

  Dean followed her to the front door. “Elissa, I know mother upset you with her talk about Jesse, but every word she said is true. And everyone who’s anyone in Savannah knows it.” Discreetly, he whispered, “Do you understand why it’s so important we keep Cody’s...ah, paternity...a secret?”

  Muriel broke in, “Dean, go see what’s wrong with the thermostat. It’s freezing in here.”

  Elissa made the most of her opportunity to escape. As she hurried down the front steps into the balmy afternoon, she saw that the windows of Muriel’s town house had begun to frost over.

  “YOU DO UNDERSTAND, don’t you, Ms. Sinclair?”

  As if from far away, the attorney’s voice droned through the fog that had settled in her mind. Understand? No, actually, she didn’t. She’d been expecting to hear about the waiver of paternal status. So why was this lawyer talking about a fortune Jesse made during the urban renewal boom?

  When she continued to stare blankly at him across his desk, the attorney explained, “To put it simply, your son has inherited Jesse’s estate. His properties and his funds.”

  “My son?” she finally said.

  The attorney sat back and removed his glasses. “Yours and Jesse’s, according to the documents he signed the day before he died.”

  Slowly, the news sank in. Jesse had left all his belongings to Cody. He had named him as his heir. He had acknowledged him as his son. He had cared.

  “He also left a tidy sum to you. According to the will, he wanted you to have the choice of staying home with Cody.”

  And as the attorney went on to explain about her role as caretaker of the properties and trustee of Cody’s funds, Elissa buried her face in her hands and cried.

  JESSE WOKE FROM THE DREAM with his teeth painfully locked. Elissa had been there with his family, letting them poison her mind. Against him, against Cody. He knew how potent that poison could be. He couldn’t stop it from affecting her view of him; he had known from the start that she’d eventually discover the truth about him.

  But he couldn’t let the gossip affect her love for their baby. If she had any love for their baby. He still had to find that out His son would grow up feeling loved, he swore, even if he had to strap him into his backpack and take him on missions.

  Jesse sat up in bed and threw the covers aside, wondering about Dean’s relationship with Elissa. Could there be any basis in reality for that part of his dream? Had he subconsciously picked up clues to a closeness between them?

  It was then, as he rose from the bed, that Jesse noticed his surroundings. The spacious bedroom with its leaded-pane windows; its polished pecan floor and woodwork aglow in the afternoon sun; the oversized Georgia pine four-poster bed with its hand-sewn quilt; the framed photo on his dresser of his old platoon gathered around a Bradley. He was home in Savannah. In his house on Isle of Hope.

  But how had he gotten here?

  He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember the trip from Elissa’s house to here. He shook his head, feeling disoriented. Why couldn’t he remember?

  A sound from outside disrupted his concentration. A car, pulling into the drive. A car door slamming. Jesse peered down through the quartered panes of the side window.

  A woman stood on the walkway in the front garden as a taxi pulled away. Her sable brown hair was tied back by a black scarf, with haphazard curls cascading down the front of one slender shoulder. She wore a slim black suit and a white silk blouse. In the last golden glare of late afternoon, her expression looked dazed and somber.

  His dreams had never come true before, but it seemed part of his last one had. Elissa was here, in Savannah, looking exactly as she had in his dream.

  A crosscurrent of emotion held Jesse in its grip: anger that she had sent him away without letting him see his son; suspicion over why she was here; and a stubborn desire to catch her up in his arms, anyway.

  He wouldn’t, of course. He hadn’t been allowed to even touch her the last time they’d met.

  He saw her graceful fingers dip into her purse as she advanced toward the front door. A moment later, he heard a key grating in the lock. A key. How did she have a key to his house? The only person who had one was his housekeeper.

  And why did Elissa feel justified in using the key, however she happened to come by it? By God, she had some explaining to do. Jesse dropped the sheer drapery back into place, curiosity roiling in his chest. Curiosity, and fierce anticipation. For whatever the reason, justified or not, Elissa was here. In his home. Tonight.

  WITHDRAWING THE KEY from the lock, Elissa paused on the front porch of the brick cottage set high on the bluff above the Skidaway River. Her first reaction to the place had been shock. She had never expected such beauty.

  Huge moss-draped live oaks canopied the driveway that sloped upward from the riverfront road. The house itself, built of Savannah brick with its soft red-gray hue, its shingled roof and leaded windows, reminded Elissa of a quaint British cottage nestled in a profusion of greenery. Ivy, grape and confederate jasmine vines festooned its aged brick walls, dappled by the shade of fig trees, oaks, pecans and palmetto palms. The scent of semitropical foliage, the taste of brackish river mist and the ambience of this historic southern coastline came to her on the twilight breeze, hauntingly appealing.

  This wild, soulful beauty had once belonged to a man every bit as compelling. A man who had drawn her to him with the same magical enchantment his house now invoked. Loneliness squeezed her breathless.

  The place belonged to her son now. She should be gladdened by his good fortune, and by hers. But she could think of nothing but the man who had bequeathed it. Jesse. Her heart ached to see him, touch him, just one more time. Of course, she never would.

  She knew what she had to do now. She had to make her peace with him. To say her final goodbye. What better place than his home? What better time than now?

  Bracing herself, she pushed open the glossy oak door. Inside, shadows engulfed her. The heavy door creaked shut, and she battled the impulse to fling it open. Instead, she stood perfectly still at the threshold, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dimness.

  She sensed a different aura than she had outside. A cool, menacing presence. As if the house, having lured her inside with its quaintness, now scorned her presence. But no, it wasn’t scorn, or disapproval. It was... anger. Yes. Anger. Against her?

  A trill of fear shivered through her, and for no logical reason, she remembered Muriel’s harsh whisper. He sprang from had seed. The blood of a rapist ran through Jesse’s veins. Was it a lingering evil that she sensed so strongly here? Whatever it was, the presence seemed to be growing stronger. Or maybe just...closer.

  No. She squared her jaw and stood her ground. She could not believe that Jesse had been evil. A heartbreaker, yes. But not evil. He had provided a secure future for the son he’d never met; certainly not the action of an evil man. She would not allow doubts raised by his aunt’s whispers—and by her own perplexing experience with Je
sse—to interfere with that certainty.

  What she felt now was merely her own longing for a connection with him...and the sinister aura of solitude in an unfamiliar house at dusk.

  The high heels of her leather pumps clicked purposefully against a stone floor as Elissa ran her fingertips over textured plaster walls in search of a switch.

  The shadows intensified around her. A chill snaked its way down her spine. She felt that if she were to reach out through the darkness, her hand would encounter a presence, a solid presence, of whatever or whomever it was....

  “Is anyone here?” she called out She was answered only by her own eerie echo. Her now convulsive groping at last produced the switch, and she exhaled in relief as illumination brightened the room.

  Again, she stood motionless.

  The vast living room was floored with pinkish flagstones, the walls textured with an earthy gray, evoking a southwestern flavor. The oversize furnishings were cushioned in shades of peach, green and cream. Area rugs and pillows abounded. Luxuriant ferns spilled from hanging baskets; large-leafed plants grew near the floor-to-ceiling windows. The mirrored blinds were drawn. Bookshelves flanked a massive fireplace whose mantel was lined with souvenirs of travel: carvings of animals, figurines, pottery, bottles, artifacts and models of ancient ships.

  Again, a wistfulness seized Elissa. The room—open, warm and intriguing—abounded with character. But the source of that character was only a memory, reflected in earthly trappings like these that could never bring him back.

  She turned away from the living room and wandered through an archway to a flight of stairs bordered by gleaming oak handrails. Jesse had certainly had a taste for elegance. Solid, masculine elegance. She hadn’t known that about him. Hadn’t been given the chance. Her sense of loss sharpened.

  On the second floor, she walked from room to room, the decor and furnishings barely registering in her mind. Only weeks ago, the place had been readied for Jesse’s return from overseas. He should have been here. He should have been guiding her tour.