Possessing Elissa

by Donna Sterling

  The chaos surged with an even greater strength, prying them apart. Fiercely he concentrated, fighting it with all of his might, utilizing skills he’d perfected over his lifetime. Locked in their embrace, the two of them swayed as the turbulence swirled and coursed.

  It took a while, but gradually the turbulence lessened. Like sunshine after a storm, pleasure—bright and dear—replaced it. With his eyes closed and his jaw buried in her jasmine-scented hair, Jesse treasured the exquisite feel of her, the womanly warmth—sensations he had waited so long to savor again. How many times had he held her like this while alone in that godforsaken prison, or holed up in the rain-deluged jungle?

  “Are you all right?” he whispered against her temple.

  She raised her eyes to his, her sherry brown gaze aglow with a warmth that made him feel more intensely alive than he had in a long, long time. “I am now.”

  He wanted to kiss her. His gut burned with need for it. He lowered his mouth to hers.

  “Jesse, wait,” she cried in an anxious whisper. She stopped him with her fingertips against his lips. He kissed them, one by one...and drew the last into his mouth.

  Her eyes darkened in sensual response. But with a soft little cry, she pulled her fingers away. “We can’t!”

  A car whizzed by them, its wind blasting their hair and clothes. He saw what she meant. They needed privacy. He meant to kiss her thoroughly, explicitly, and for as long as he damned well pleased.

  Without breaking their hard-won contact, he swept her to the passenger side of her car, away from the highway, in the cozy shade of the forest. “There.” His arms, strong and determined, pulled her solidly against him. How perfect, the fit of their bodies...

  “No, you don’t understand. I don’t think we’re from the same world, you and I.”

  “You knew that when we met. But it didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t matter now.” He ran his roughened hands along her velvety cheeks until he’d captured the fine oval of her face. Gruffly, he reminded her, “You still owe me my welcome home.”

  An odd vulnerability lit her gaze. The claim had, for some reason, affected her deeply. And she affected him deeply. Too deeply.

  With stubborn resolve, he lowered his head.

  “Please, Jesse!” she cried, her whisper anguished. But she failed to specify the exact nature of her request.

  So he kissed her. A slow, sensual sampling of her lips and mouth. A thousand delicious sensations swirled through him. He’d been craving her for far too long. His kiss plunged deeper then, his concentration intense.

  And somewhere along the way, she lost her reservations. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she joined in and welcomed him home. Thoroughly.

  The impact of that welcome ambushed Jesse. It packed a much greater punch than the warmth, the sweetness, the excitement he had expected. Without ending the kiss, he backed her up against her car door, his hips bracketing hers. She moaned deep in her throat—a wildly seductive sound. He thrust his fingers into her hair and slanted his mouth for deeper exploration.

  She broke away from his kiss with a breathy gasp. “Stop! We can’t do this!”

  Closing his eyes, he leaned his forehead against hers, the need to make love to her a physical ache. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t the place. Let’s go up to my house.”

  “Jesse, it’s more than that.” Her breathing sounded as labored as his. “I tried to tell you, we have to talk.” The quiver of her voice and body soothed him somewhat. It hadn’t been easy for her to stop, either. “I think you’re a ghost.”

  It took a moment to absorb her words.

  “You think I’m what?” He could have easily countered philosophical arguments—nonsense about respect, commitment and the like. Or even indictments against his character. But this was a new one on him. She thought he was a ghost? In his astonishment, he allowed her to pull away.

  As their bodies parted, an odd dizziness overtook him. A deep, drugging weariness seeped into his mind and sapped his strength. He’d felt the peculiar draining before—in the hotel suite, shortly after Elissa had touched him. As if contact with her somehow used up too much physical energy.

  “Think about it,” she said with passionate earnestness. “The military declared you dead. Your family held a funeral service for you—a funeral that you saw! You disappear without a moment’s warning. You appear in a locked suite without an apparent way in....”

  Interesting points she had raised. But ridiculous. He shook his head to dispel the fuzziness clouding his mind.

  Her eyes glimmered with concern. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” He wasn’t, though. Intense weariness tugged at him and his vision had dimmed at the edges. Did these symptoms precipitate the blackouts? That’s all she’d need—an unconscious man to worry about, along with the possible return of her assailants. Anger flowed within him—anger at the inexplicable ailment. What the hell was going on?

  “Was it...our touch?” she whispered.

  Jesse gaped at her in surprise. So she’d felt it, too. Which meant it wasn’t just some psychological thing—a symptom of post-traumatic shock like some of his army buddies had suffered. Uncomfortable with questions he had no answers for, he hid his concern behind nonchalance. “At least you can’t say there’s no chemistry between us.”

  She didn’t find his quip amusing. Crossing her arms, she leaned a shapely hip against her car. “Did you notice that those two buffoons couldn’t see you?”

  Apprehension curled through him. He’d noticed, all right. “They didn’t want to see me,” he muttered. “Selective perception, I’d call it.” He blinked against the weariness that weighted his eyelids.

  “And what about Suzanne?”

  Regardless of his flip answers, the whole issue did baffle him. No one had ignored him before—ever. Even when he was a kid. They might have hated him, mistrusted him, even feared him. But no one had ignored Jesse Garrett.

  “Face it, Jesse—people can’t see you.”

  “You can.”

  “Well, yes.” She didn’t offer an explanation for that neat little fact.

  “Are you in the habit of seeing ghosts?” he asked.

  “No, of course not!”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear that.” He forced a hard little smile. “I’d better change that flat tire before I, uh, disappear.” Although he’d meant it sarcastically, the statement sent an odd prickling down the back of his neck.

  Elissa caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

  Jesse turned away and strode toward the rear of the vehicle where the flat tire needed tending. With every step, he felt as if he were straining against a strong wind on the tilted deck of a ship.

  There was something wrong with him, he had to admit. Vitally wrong. The gaps in his memory, the way people looked right through him these days. The damned shock that nearly fried him when Elissa and he touched. He’d have to take care of that problem soon. Real soon.

  In the meantime, he wasn’t about to buy into that ridiculous notion of hers! He’d have to see a doctor, plain and simple. A shrink, maybe. And he’d make an appointment for her, too.

  Determined to finish his task despite the cloudiness in his mind, he wrenched the rusted lug nuts loose as Elissa busied herself with something inside the car. The tire change took longer than he expected; the weariness taxed every move he made. With acute relief, he finally bolted the spare tire in place, packed the flat one in the rear of the vehicle and turned to find Elissa watching him.

  At least he could still see her. And that was no small thing. With tiny pearls glinting at her ears and throat, in her white cashmere sweater and tight jeans, her dusky hair flowing around her shoulders, she was simply the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  In a solemn undertone, she queried, “What do you think your problem is, Jesse?”

  “A woman I want so damn bad I can’t see straight.” He pressed in closer to peer down into her face, his breath stirring the tendrils of hair near her
temples. “The same woman who pulls away from my kiss for no good reason.”

  A delicate flush crept into her cheeks. “Be serious.”

  “You don’t think I am?”

  “About the...the ghost issue. You have to at least give it some thought.” She was flustered and he was glad.

  Tightening his lips, he moved past her to the car door, feeling as if he were wading through neck-deep quicksand. “Better get going. No sense in standing here on the highway.”

  “That’s another thing. How did you get here, to this isolated spot on a country road?”

  Fighting the dimness that framed his field of vision, he opened the door for her, then leaned his forearm across the top of it. “I walked through the woods.”

  “But how did you get to the woods?” she persisted. “And why did you appear right when I needed you?”

  The insidious heaviness was worsening, and his vision had narrowed into a thin tunnel. “The woods are adjacent to my property.” He heard the slur in his words and hoped she would miss it. “I was in my garage when I heard you.” Remembering his work on the boat, he looked down at his hands. They were covered with black motor grease. With a grimace, he glanced up at her. Smudges of grease marred the sleeves, shoulders and sides of her white sweater.

  Following his glance, she noticed the smears herself. Her brows, like angel wings, lifted in surprise.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’ll buy you a new sweater. When we get to the house, you can take this one off.” The thought of helping her out of the sweater blurred his vision even more.

  “I don’t care about the sweater. Jesse, your garage is nowhere near here. Your house is an hour’s drive away.”

  The weariness bore down on him with an awesome weight, and he struggled to make sense of her words. “Don’t be ridiculous. My house is just through those woods.”

  “No, it’s not. Look around.” Her gesture encompassed the highway and surrounding forest “Do you recognize this stretch of road as one that borders your property?”

  He pretended to inspect the landscape, but could barely focus his eyes. “Of course.” Fiercely he concentrated on staving off the encroaching dimness.

  It was then that he heard the cry—a plaintive wail of an infant- It came from inside the car. A smile lightened Elissa’s expression, probably because of the surprise that must have crossed his features. She leaned into the car and reached into the back seat.

  Realization hit Jesse like a bucket of cold water. It was Cody. Cody was here, in the car. He had asked her to bring him, but in the commotion of the fight—and then the heat of their kiss—he hadn’t given the baby a thought.

  He bent to peer around Elissa, trying to see his son. His vision had blurred so much, he could make out only vague outlines.

  Elissa soon emerged from the car, her face very near his as she gazed up at him in the narrow door opening. “He lost his pacifier,” she explained, her voice hushed. “He’s already back asleep. He fussed the first couple hours of the trip, so he should sleep awhile longer.”

  A ground swell of emotion lifted Jesse’s heart. His son was here; the child born from the love Elissa and he had shared. He wanted to pull the front seat forward to see him better, but the weariness had grown too heavy to hold off.

  He had to leave her, had to be alone. He didn’t stop to analyze the need; it was too urgent, too basic. Clenching his teeth, he said with an effort, “I’m going up to the house. Meet me there.” He turned and headed for the woods.

  “But your house is an hour’s drive away from here!”

  “It’s just around the bend.” He didn’t break his stride, but a disturbing question occurred to him. If he had actually passed out during those lapses in his memory, why hadn’t Elissa found him lying somewhere? He’d been m his own house the first time, in her hotel suite the second. Even if he’d wandered away before succumbing to unconsciousness, surely someone would have found him.

  “Jesse!” wailed Elissa. “Come back!”

  From the cool shadows of the forest, he called, “I’m going home to clean this grease off my hands.” He forced a smile into his next words. “I plan on holding my son.”

  And you. Through a whole month of nights. No force on earth would stop him.

  ELISSA COULDN’T QUITE bring herself to drive away from the roadside spot. How could she leave him without a ride home?

  Silly, she knew. He had appeared out of nowhere, and would apparently go back the way he’d come. The problem was making herself believe it.

  How could a ghost kiss like that? How could their bodies fit together with such perfection? In the space of a few thunderous heartbeats, he’d swept her away to a dimension of pure sensual longing. No man in her entire life had ignited her passion so quickly, so fiercely—except Jesse. She remembered the last time he’d kissed her, the night she had thrown a lifetime of scruples to the wind and made love with a perfect stranger. His kiss hadn’t changed, not one iota.

  So how could he be a ghost?

  When she finally forced herself to pull back onto the highway and resume her journey, she almost expected his house to be “right around the bend,” as he had predicted. But it wasn’t. Her map plainly indicated that the nearest town was a good sixty miles away from his home on Isle of Hope.

  So how could he not be a ghost?

  The questions went on and on. When she stopped in Savannah to grab a sandwich, feed Cody and change his diaper, she looked down at her sweater and suffered another surprise. It was clean, without the slightest smudge of grease. But she had seen the black smears with her own eyes....

  Elissa thought about Dr. Lehmberg’s theory. If strong-minded spirits could stimulate the human senses, make one see, taste, smell, hear and feel things that might not actually be taking place, was this the case with Jesse? Virtual reality?

  She leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. The heat of his embrace, the thrill of his kiss, the passion he incited, had surely felt like reality. He had made her feel truly alive.

  She pulled into the oak-canopied driveway of Jesse’s home on the river bluff and looked at her watch. One-thirty—one hour since their roadside tryst.

  His house, with its red-gray Savannah brick festooned with vines, its quaint shingled roof and leaded windows, stood quiet and dark beneath the profusion of exotic, semitropical trees. Holding Cody tightly in her arms, Elissa ventured up the front steps to the glossy oak door and pressed the doorbell.

  Chimes echoed within. A mournful, lonely sound.

  No one answered.

  Her heart sank. Where was he? With the key his attorney had given her, she unlocked the massive door and found the place exactly as she had left it—cool and vacant. No food in the refrigerator, no trash in the trash container, no clothes in the hamper, no toiletries out of place. The house had obviously not been lived in for a very long time.

  Of course not, she chided herself. Its owner is dead. Anguish struck her anew. What had she expected—a fire in the hearth, a meal on the stove? It occurred to her that she had no guarantee even of his company. He might not return.

  Had he disappeared because their kiss had robbed him of vital energy? Although he had tried to hide the weariness, she had seen it overtake him, just as it had in the hotel room. Had he disappeared in the solitude of the forest? Again, their contact had been her fault; she had lunged into his arms without thinking. Would he come back this time?

  Squaring her jaw, Elissa resolved to buck up and adopt an optimistic outlook—Jesse would return. Allowing herself no idle time to entertain doubts, she busied herself settling in. She unpacked her luggage and set up Cody’s travel crib in the bedroom across from Jesse’s. She stacked firewood on the stone hearth for an evening fire. She drove to the nearest grocery store and stocked the kitchen with food. All the while, she listened for Jesse’s footsteps, bracing herself for his sudden appearance.

  Jesse did not appear that day, or the next.

  With his house dark and
brooding around her on that second night, she readied herself for bed, struggling to maintain her optimism. Not an easy task. Jesse hadn’t had the chance to hold Cody, or to even get a very good look at him. Had he gone to his ever-after without accomplishing his final mission? What sad irony for a proud soldier.

  She wanted to pray, but wasn’t sure what to pray for.

  She truly did want the best for Jesse, whatever that might be. Yet she had to admit that she also wanted to see him again. At least one more time.

  Sleep eluded her. As midnight struck, she lay peering into the bedroom shadows, searching the darkness for movement, wondering whether shadows walked the halls this night. She shivered beneath the bedcovers, very much afraid—not that the house was haunted, but that it was not.

  Her fear took an entirely different turn in the morning. It grabbed her heart with icy hands and squeezed tight. When she had reached into the small crib near her bedside, she had found that it was empty.

  7

  SHE TORE MADLY through the house, from room to room, her heart thundering, her fears ranging from common everyday kidnapping to vengeful spirits. She dung to the hope of something in between. She prayed that Jesse had returned and would be waiting downstairs with Cody safe in his arms.

  No one awaited her downstairs, or in any other room of the house. Fear pounded through her as she stopped her wild pacing in the center of the vast living room, trying to marshall her thoughts and form a plan.

  That’s when she heard it—the low murmur of a voice coming from the back yard. Behind the mirrored vertical blinds, the sliding glass door to the walled garden had been left slightly open. With her heart in her mouth, she edged toward that garden door and drew the blinds aside.

  There he was, the kidnapper. The vengeful spirit.