His Haunting Kiss

by Heather Marie Adkins

  He’d come to terms with his death. He had no lingering issues other than a slight sadness over his wife, who had died long before he had.

  Ian Clarke, the enigmatic, way-too-human Earthbound who had completely blown my mind.

  If Arimea was right, I was an Earthbound.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I slept fitfully on Sunday, lost in confusing dreams that centered around Ian, Sherrie, and the dozens of ghost hunts I’d been on in the past several years.

  I awoke to a stormy afternoon, still battling an inner turmoil over Arimea’s words. There was simply no way it could be true. I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever even come close to dying, not to mention how on earth would a body not be found?

  I called Madison.

  “You left without saying goodbye last night,” was how she answered her phone.

  “I hit my head.” I opened my closet to search for some shorts. “Ves knocked and looked in on you to let you know we were leaving, but she said you were out of it.”

  Madison chuckled. “I slept really well last night. I felt safer, somehow.”

  “You’re welcome,” I joked.

  “How’d it go?” she asked me, her voice lowering.

  “Is Jacob there?”

  “Yes. In the other room.”

  “I met your ghost,” I told her, going for honesty because, frankly, she deserved it.

  She gasped. “You did not.”

  “Hear me out.” I told her about Ian and how he died, and my theory that the dark entity was tied to his death. “I’m headed to the library to research his time period with the Horeland family.”

  “Why go to the library?” Madison asked. “We have extensive family records in our personal library.”

  “Oh.” I grabbed a T-shirt with a cartoon image of a ghost on it. “I didn’t know.”

  “Come on over.” She lowered her voice again. “Are we not safe here? Should I convince Jacob to take me somewhere?”

  “Stay out of the attic. Ian is watching over you for now.”

  “I’m not sure if that eases my mind or freaks me out,” she said wryly.

  I laughed. “I’ll be there soon.”

  I hung up and tossed my cell on the bed, then got dressed. As I was putting on eyeliner — the grand extent of my daily make-up — Sherrie floated in.

  “You are still going to get me books, right?” she asked sadly. “I’m so bored.”

  I laughed. “What did you do before I came to live here?”

  “It was an awful existence, Boston. Just awful.” She winked. “The previous tenants never could explain why their books and magazines magically moved around when they weren’t looking.”

  “I’ll run by and grab your books,” I assured her. “I still wanna see what I can find on the library’s new digital system.”

  Sherrie sighed, sitting on the edge of my bed; well, sitting for her, which generally consisted of floating above the surface.

  “Why don’t you actually sit?” I asked her as I pulled my long hair into a ponytail.

  “Too much work.” She shrugged. “I do not need to be human for you.”

  “I love you just the way you are.” I blew her a kiss, then glanced in the mirror one last time. “Ian walks on solid ground. Without any effort at all. He never wavers like you do. Why do you think that is?”

  Sherrie shook her head, her gaze concerned. “I don’t know.”

  I sighed, grabbing my bag from the floor and tossing it over my shoulder. “I’m starting to think I don’t know as much about ghosts as I thought.”

  *

  The Tory library was the oldest building in town. It was built in 1803 by Nathaniel Tory, third oldest of the Tory heirs and a certified bookworm. He lived out his eighty years as head librarian, and to this day still haunted the halls of his Neoclassical rotunda.

  I crossed paths with him as I passed the biography aisle, headed for the computers. He smiled at me, his transparent form hovering two feet above the floor.

  “Boston! It is always a pleasure. How are you this fine day?”

  Nathaniel was a handsome older gentleman with gray hair and prominent jowls. I’d once read that he was a strict librarian when it came to noise and nonsense in his library, but when it came to interacting with people who had a genuine love for the written word, he was a saint.

  “I’m fine, Nathaniel. Thanks for asking. How are you?” I couldn’t help but study him and wonder if I could see his Shade only because I was dead, too.

  “Lovely, my dear. We received a generous donation of books from an estate north of Savannah. Lovely woman, I knew her grandmother years ago. So sad to hear of her passing.”

  “I’m sorry to hear of it, as well,” I said sympathetically, not in the mood for small talk. I lifted Sherrie’s list and gave him my best smile. “If I don’t get these books for Sherrie soon, she might stage a coup.”

  Nathaniel clucked. “That roommate of yours sure sounds like a handful. I hope you have a wonderful day.”

  As he usually did, Nathaniel shifted through the bookshelves and disappeared. Living with Sherrie, who didn’t shift through walls all that often, had made it harder to see Shades do things like that.

  I continued to the computer area, separated from the rest of the library only by a knee-high brick wall. Five years ago, this area housed ancient computers and file cabinets full of records. A donation from the Horeland family had allowed the library to digitize all newspaper archives, thus conserving space and preserving history. Funny how I couldn’t seem to get away from the Horeland family lately.

  A friend of mine from high school, Blake Morely, ran the computer desk. She’d been with the library since the moment we graduated. She’d always been kind of awkward, tall and gangly with bushy brown hair and thick glasses, but the past year had seen some kind of metamorphosis — in her appearance, anyway. Poor Blake had the worst luck of any person I’d ever met.

  Today, her chestnut hair was straightened and in a messy bun on top of her head. She wore a short black skirt with a swishy hem, and a gray fitted button-down tucked into the high waist. Her long legs were on display, as well as a pretty flower tattoo on the inside of one bicep.

  “That’s new,” I greeted her, poking the flower.

  She grinned, shoving her tortoiseshell cat-eye glasses on top of her head. “Boston! Here to look up another haunted house?”

  “Sort of. I need to do some research on the Horeland family.”

  Blake grinned. “I love them.”

  “Yes, I know. They gave you your computers.” I motioned to her arm. “I like it. I never saw you as a tattoo kind of person.”

  Blake lifted her sleeve, revealing the full image. It was impressive. The flower and its accompanying foliage covered the entire inside of her bicep. “Thanks. It was an accident.”

  I laughed. “How can you accidentally get a tattoo?”

  “Long story,” she said with a wry smile. “Take me out for a drink one night and I’ll tell you.”

  “How’s Whitney?” Whitney Marksmith had been Blake’s best friend since grade school. They’d been renting a house together for the past year out near my parents’.

  Blake rolled her eyes. “Lost another job. I swear, it’s like she’s not cut out for any kind of work. If she would just be nicer to people…”

  I nodded sagely. Whitney had an attitude. But if she liked you, she was really loyal.

  “Let’s get you set up,” Blake said, opening the hatch on the desk and coming out to accompany me to the computer stations.

  Five minutes later, I was logged in to browse the archives. I narrowed my search to “Horeland” and a time frame of fifty years before and after Ian’s death.

  The search results came back quick as lightning, and there were many. I settled against the back of my chair and started perusing files.

  I found a lot of mentions of Richard Horeland, Sr. the patriarch of the family in Ian’s day. He opened a hospital with his generous donation. He cas
hed in on the north Georgia gold rush in the early 1800s, and then jumped on the tobacco bandwagon not long after. That explained the large amount of flat, green land on Horeland Estate.

  I found the wedding announcement for Ian Clarke and Ramona Horeland, and not a year later, Ramona’s obituary. Cancer.

  Horeland, Sr. got around. He seemed pretty active in the community, particularly in giving back to the community, and he worked closely with the Tory family in building up our little town. It was interesting, trying to figure out if he was just that great of a human being, or if he put on a show to make the public like him.

  I finally found a small passing mention of Ian’s disappearance.

  Ian Clarke, son-in-law to Richard Horeland, Sr., missing since Tuesday morning. Any information regarding his whereabouts should be communicated immediately to the Horeland family.

  I paged through the next week’s worth of papers, hoping to see something more.

  The next big announcement from the Horeland Family was an obituary for Richard Horeland, Jr., stating his death a “tragic accident.”

  Neither men were mentioned again.

  *

  I said goodbye to Blake — promising drinks soon — and left her desk no wiser to the history of the Horeland family than I was before my research.

  In the stacks, I grabbed two mystery novels, then four romances from the historical fiction section, and headed for the young adult novels. Sherrie wanted to read the latest and greatest vampire romance, the one that had been topping the charts for weeks now and had even had a spot on Ellen. I didn’t have high hopes that our small, understocked library would have a copy available, but I’d try anyway.

  I was on my knees, thumbing through the M’s, when his voice slid around me like an embrace.

  “I could watch you browse the library all day long, Miss Kane.”

  I shivered, swallowing hard. His voice was just this side of indecent, low and throaty, making an innocent comment sound like sex itself.

  I stood, abandoning my search for vampire romance, and turned to face him.

  The light in the library was better than Horeland Estate. In the sunshine, Ian was stunning with his Nordic good looks. There was something different in his eyes that hadn’t been there before we’d kissed.

  Something affectionate.

  “You can leave Horeland Estate,” I said. Could this guy get any more astonishing?

  “Yes, of course. I can go anywhere I want.” Ian grinned, rocking back onto his heels. “I thought we had already discussed this.”

  “But you can leave the grounds entirely!” I hissed. “This goes against everything I’ve learned about Earthbounds.” I stared at him, finally asking what had been niggling me for two days. “Did you show up on Albert Street and fight off the Earthbound to get me my recorder?”

  “I did not so much ‘show up’ as I followed you there and found myself able to help a damsel in distress.”

  “I am not a damsel in distress,” I said grumpily, clutching Sherrie’s books to my chest.

  “I’m beginning to see that,” he murmured, taking a step forward. He gently tugged my hand away from the books and pressed a kiss to my knuckles that was anything but chaste.

  I fought the urge to fan myself.

  “Are you sure you’re from the 1800s?” I asked him breathlessly. “’Cuz you’re way too sexy for your own good.”

  He grinned. “Ah, but see, I spent the last hundred years studying and watching the world around me. Surely I am allowed to evolve?”

  “If you’d evolved that much, you’d have gotten me out of my dress faster than I could snap my fingers yesterday,” I joked.

  His arm looped around my waist and dragged me against him, and his lips stopped mere centimeters from my own. “My sweet, I am a gentleman.”

  Then he kissed me.

  His lips should have been outlawed in forty states. The kiss went on for much longer than publicly necessary, half-parts because I refused to be the one to stop it, and half-parts because when Ian kissed me, I became mindless enough that nothing in the world could bother me.

  “I cannot believe you’re letting me kiss you,” Ian said against my lips, his hands moving gently up my back. “Boston, you are a beautiful woman. You deserve more than a dead man.”

  “I can’t believe you can even do this,” I said. “Not to mention be so good at it.”

  Ian went still, his hands falling away from me as he took a brisk step back. He regarded me silently for a long moment. “Miss Kane, answer me this: Did you… have relations with me simply to prove you could? Or because you desired me?”

  “Technically, it was because you’re so cute,” I said flippantly, chuckling because he called making out “relations.”

  “Miss Kane, please answer my question.”

  “Both,” I said, worried that the truth was the wrong answer.

  “If you would please excuse me,” Ian said stoically, and disappeared.

  “I know you’re still here,” I said out loud. “I can feel you.”

  And I could. His signature hung in the air like a musky cologne. It was the strongest I’d ever felt him. Maybe Horeland itself was the problem, the dark entity a dampener between us.

  No response.

  “I’m sorry. What’s happening between us… it’s incredible. And not just because you’re an Earthbound.”

  Silence.

  I sighed. “I need your help to get rid of the creature.”

  “So you are able to admit weakness?” The voice seemed to come from all around me. He hadn’t manifested, but he stood very close to me.

  “I admit, I’m officially out of my league here.” I took a deep breath, and went on. “Ian, I read something last night that… concerns me. We need to talk.”

  “I will follow you home.”

  “You’re being a child.”

  “You used me as an experiment. I am entitled to be invisible if it pleases me.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  As I found the rest of Sherrie’s list, and picked up a couple books of my own, I could feel Ian behind me. His presence never drifted far, and as I dropped my books on the counter to check out, he pressed against me, one hand drifting up my arm. An innocent touch.

  I fought hard to keep my knees from buckling.

  “Hey, Boston.” Nicole popped her gum and grinned. She was the youngest library assistant, and my personal favorite. “I saw you kissing that hunka hunk in the stacks. Who is he? I’m glad to see you finally have a decent boyfriend. That Alan guy was shit.”

  I stared at her. “What?”

  “Oh!” Nicole giggled. “Is the new guy a secret? Should I not tell anyone?”

  Even if I told her not to tell anyone, she would. Nicole had no tact.

  “You saw me kissing a guy,” I said slowly, watching her face. “Did you think he was cute?”

  “Yeah, for sure. Like Thor cute.”

  Oh. My. God. She could see Ian.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Did you manifest on purpose in there?” I asked as I slammed through the door into brilliant afternoon sunshine. “Please tell me you meant to do that.”

  I heard nothing but bird song and traffic for so long that I thought he’d left.

  Finally, he said, “No. I did not manifest on purpose. Quite frankly, when I touch you, I am incapable of doing or thinking anything.”

  I felt his pain.

  “So why did Nicole see you?” My heart pounded. Arimea’s blog post was foremost in my mind: We feed off of the power each other brings to the fold. When I am with my husband, we are both stronger, more life-like.

  “I do not know, Boston,” Ian replied, his own voice as baffled as I felt.

  *

  Sherrie skidded into the hallway, her high heels actually tapping as Ian and I came through the door.

  “This is him,” she said, eyes wide. “Isn’t it? The two of you together… Good Lord, Boston, you’re like a battery. I felt you coming from the lobby!�
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  “Your feet are on the floor,” I observed, staring. I couldn’t help it; in all the years I’d lived with Sherrie, she’d never once set her feet on the floor.

  “It’s him!” She pointed to Ian, her gaze on me. “And you!”

  To his credit, Ian stepped forward and offered a hand, completely unflappable. “Ian Clarke, at your service.”

  “Sherrie Reynolds,” my dead roomie replied, sitting her small, trim fingers atop his.

  When Ian leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to her knuckles, I thought she was going to swoon.

  “We have some stuff to talk about,” I said, handing her the bag of books. “I just came by to give you your books. We’re headed out to Horeland Estate.”

  Sherrie gave us a wave, already distracted by her new books.

  *

  Ian rode in my car.

  Rather than leave my side, he chose to ride with me. Granted, he looked incredibly strange sitting in my front seat with his stiff posture and old-fashioned clothes. He watched out the window as scenery passed, strands of his hair slipping from place into his eyes.

  It was a miracle we made it to my sister’s alive with how often I looked at him. Everything about him, from the tiny lines at the corner of his eyes to the way his lips always seemed to quirk up, was beautiful.

  The sky had turned overcast by the time I turned into the dark asphalt driveway at Horeland. My weather app didn’t say anything about rain, but in the south, we expected change the way we expected peaches in the summer.

  “I’ll meet you in the library,” Ian told me as I put the car in Park.

  “Don’t you want to meet my sister?” I asked. “Formally?”

  Ian smiled. “I appreciate the acknowledgment, but no. I am sure your sister worries enough about the strange goings-on in her home without meeting the culprit.”

  “You’re not the problem,” I assured him. “Your brother-in-law is.”

  “I still do not believe he is the creature.”

  “I don’t believe in Santa, but that doesn’t mean he’s real.”