Jared nodded. “I discovered that he and his buddy, who got away, were getting ready to start a fire in my barn. Luckily, the rags they used were damp, so it didn’t do much more than smolder. They didn’t like that I interrupted their fun and games. I also noticed the smell of chemicals on his clothing. Chemicals that have nothing to do with fires.”
She nodded in understanding, since she’d busted more than her share of meth labs found in the area. Because they didn’t need a lot of space, they were usually found in mobile homes or abandoned buildings. “Still, it’s a good thing you saw the fire. They might have tried to help it along, since it wasn’t going the way they hoped.” She raised her flashlight and shone it on his face. “Looks like they got a few licks in before you got the best of them.”
“I wanted them to feel manly.” He grinned, a fact he promptly regretted when the torn skin at his eyebrow burned.
Deputy Wright untied the man and expertly snapped handcuffs on him. “Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” she crooned. “We have a lovely room in our dungeon set aside just for you.”
“Okay if I wait until morning to come out and sign the complaint?” Jared asked.
“Sure. He won’t be going anywhere.” She managed to wrestle the groggy man into the back of her vehicle. “So you’re living out here full time now?” She looked up at the torn-up wall covered with a heavy plastic sheet.
“Yeah. I thought I’d fix up the old place and start acting like a landowner.” He grinned.
She looked at her back seat. “Can you do us a favor and not have all your little friends over at once? We like it quiet out here,” she said.
“You don’t need to worry about me. I’m living the life of a monk.”
The deputy sheriff looked skeptical at his flippant remark. She drove off with her punch-drunk prisoner sprawled in the back seat.
Jared remained outside until the patrol car’s taillights disappeared from sight.
He thought of the two men he’d encountered at the barn. He was positive at one point he’d heard Rachel’s voice inside his head, and had turned, barely avoiding a nasty crack to the skull from one thug going after him with a shovel. Jared was positive this time around he’d left more damage on them than they had on him. He just wished he could have caught the other bastard.
As he neared the kitchen door he recalled the sight of Rachel sprawled on the floor when he had walked in. She’d told him before that she couldn’t leave the house, yet even so she’d tried to run out to help him.
He shook his head. “There has to be a way to break that curse.”
But what would happen to Rachel if the curse was broken? Would she disappear for good?
He didn’t want to think of that possibility.
Jared was the first to admit women weren’t something he knew much about. The females who had passed in and out of his life may have been all-woman, but they didn’t have the innate femininity that Rachel, Lea and Celeste displayed.
A part of him wanted to protect Rachel. He wanted to give her the security she had sought in her marriage and never received. Another part wanted to strip off that old-fashioned dress and show her something else he guessed she’d missed out on. He’d bet everything he had that she’d never experienced true physical pleasure. He only had to see the pictures of the grim-featured Caleb Bingham to figure out the man would have only sought his own release in bed, with no interest in pleasing a partner.
Rachel was different from any woman he’d been with before. As the days went by he couldn’t imagine a future without her.
“You’re lucky you’re dead, Caleb,” he muttered to himself. “Otherwise, you’d think whatever was done to you back then was a picnic compared to what I’d do to you now.”
He walked into the family room and looked up the stairs.
“It’s okay, Rachel. You can come down now.”
She appeared at the top of the stairs and looked down. “The police are gone?” she asked in her soft voice.
“Our uninvited guest has been picked up by the local taxi service.”
“Is that your way of saying the man has been arrested?” she asked.
He grinned. “Most definitely. He won’t be bothering us for a while.”
As he looked up at her, he felt an aching in his chest. The light on the landing created a golden aura around her slender figure. She disappeared into the bathroom, then came out holding a cloth, and descended the stairs with her gliding step.
“An angel,” he murmured.
“You could have been badly hurt,” she told him, pushing him none too gently into a chair. Then she carefully wiped his face with the warm wet washcloth. “There were two of them against only one of you.”
“Those odds weren’t all that bad. I’ve taken on more than two and made it out in one piece.” He raised a hand with the intention of gently but firmly pushing her away and informing her he didn’t need to be looked after like some kid who came in off the playground with skinned knees. He normally didn’t like women fussing over him, but it felt different when Rachel was doing the fussing.
At this rate, I’ll soon be getting those warm fuzzy feelings and walking around with an idiotic smile on my face.
He looked up and saw concern etching faint lines across her forehead and around her eyes.
“I’m okay,” he said softly, placing his hand on her arm to halt her ministrations. “I’ve had much worse.”
Her lower lip trembled, then firmed as if she struggled to contain her emotions.
“I know.”
Her whisper might as well have been a shout.
Jared’s body stilled. “Of course you do,” he whispered, as much to himself as to her. “At night you would have been hiding somewhere upstairs anytime someone broke into the house. The kids didn’t go upstairs because they figured the ghosts were up there. They all bragged they were coming out here to find Caleb’s ghost, but they didn’t do anything that would press their luck. They felt they’d already done their part just by breaking into the haunted house. Lots of initiations went on out here.” He kept his eyes on her face. “Face down the ghost at the Bingham ranch. Light candles and say old Caleb’s name three times. Scare your girlfriends and make them think you’re protecting them. Or…” his smile grew dark “…come out here to a house that might supposedly be haunted, but where you still felt safer than you did in your own house. Even facing down old Caleb wouldn’t be as scary as the devil in your family.”
“You were nine or ten,” she whispered as an old memory surfaced. “Your pants were torn and so was your shirt. You had a bruise on your cheek and your nose was bleeding.”
His jaw looked as if it had been carved from granite and his eyes deepened to a dark shade of gold as old memories attacked him. His hand dropped from her arm as if it had been burned. She was forced to step back as he stood up.
“I guess I asked for that.” He looked down at her with a black expression that hinted at his own long buried emotions.
“You have memories you don’t want resurrected, just as I have mine. Perhaps now you understand more why I feel the way I do. Why I prefer keeping some things to myself.” She still had the cloth clutched in one hand. She turned away. “Good night, Jared.”
He watched her slowly climb the stairs.
He thought of calling her back. He thought of going up after her.
But then what? He had to remind himself that she wasn’t real. That for all he knew she wouldn’t be there tomorrow night because the curse would somehow be lifted.
The army had taught Jared to make an orderly life for himself. There was nothing fancy and nothing that held any surprises. He didn’t consider the homicide cases he investigated surprises. That was something he understood. Someone was murdered. He combed through evidence and clues. If he did his homework, he found the murderer, and if the courts did their job, the murderer was brought to justice.
As he thought, no surprises. All in order.
Except Rachel Bingham was an unex
pected force in his life.
He’d never believed in taking the easy road. It seemed lately that he’d been climbing a pretty high mountain instead of driving a nice flat highway. Everything that had gone on lately was proof of that.
To make matters worse, he had fallen for a woman he could never have.
Chapter 9
Jared used his T-shirt to wipe the sweat from his face before he picked up the water bottle he’d set on the railing. He looked at the brand-new French doors, which looked as if they had been there all along.
“They make it seem too easy on television,” he muttered. He glanced down and sighed. “Harley, stop that digging!” The dog looked up from his efforts, then returned to his job as canine earthmover. “Damn dog is going to dig holes all over the yard. You better not dig any holes after I put grass in or you’re going to find yourself inside your very own personal fenced-in yard,” he threatened.
The pup didn’t look too worried about his master’s idle threat.
“You are doing this for my niña, are you not?”
“I only do things for myself.” He glanced at Maya as a thought occurred to him. “Have you been drinking my beer? The bottles sure seem to disappear a lot more lately.”
She made a face. “Modern beer is not as strong as the beer in my time. It does not do as well in my stews as I would like, but I do what I can.”
His jaw dropped. “You put perfectly good beer in stew?”
She looked smug. “You said my stew is the best you have ever had. That it always tastes wonderful.”
“Sure, it tastes good, but it can’t be because you put beer in it.”
“I say it is.” She turned around, then froze. She quickly walked down the steps and stopped at the base. She bent down and fingered the fragrant jasmine bushes that Jared had planted on each side of the steps that morning. When she looked up, her eyes glistened. “The hole you made in the wall now looks very nice with the fancy doors, but you made a lot of dust I had to sweep up. But I forgive you because of these.” She touched a glossy green leaf. “You did all of this for my niña, Rachel.” A sense of wonder and emotion thickened her voice.
Jared was surprised by her emotional reaction. He wasn’t used to the older woman revealing her inner feelings. The idea of tough-as-nails Maya getting emotional frankly scared the hell out of him.
She climbed the steps and stopped in front of him, cupping his cheek with her work-worn hand.
“You have a good heart, Señor Stryker,” she said in her rough voice. “You are a gift from the gods.”
“Does that mean you don’t want to cut it out today?” He hoped to stave off any threat of tears.
She smiled slightly. “You are spared for another day.” She moved away and went back into the house.
Jared shook his head in bewilderment. “No wonder they say women can make a man nuts. You never know what they’re going to say or do next.”
He turned back to his task. His day had started early with a trip to the county sheriff’s department, where he gave his statement. He wasn’t surprised to hear the man he’d captured had a lengthy record that included assault and battery, robbery, drug dealing and arson. Rumor also had it that he was associated with thugs suspected of running a meth lab.
While he liked Deputy Wright’s no-nonsense manner, he decided he didn’t like Sheriff Mills at all. He easily saw that the pompous man preferred to hide behind his deputies’ good work and take the credit when it was due and blame them for his own mistakes.
Jared was grateful to leave the tiny sheriff’s station and return home.
He looked down to see Maya outside again, crouching by the bushes. She carried a pot in one hand and carefully poured water around each bush.
“They need water,” she scolded.
“I need to get back to police work,” he told her. “It’s a hell of a lot easier.”
“You need to find the other man who hurt you and discover why he wanted to burn your barn. Then you can return to your police work.”
Jared watched the old woman tending the bushes. “Tell me something. Do you see things at night the way Rachel sees things during the day? She says she feels as if she’s in a cloud.”
Maya shook her head. “My time at night is a sense of nothingness. The first thing I saw this morning was your face. Not that anyone could hurt it more. Also, do you realize when those big fancy doors are open we will have flies coming into the house as if they were invited?”
“She gives with one hand, smacks me upside the head with the other,” he muttered, then chuckled at her outrage. “That’s what screens are there for. Welcome to the twenty-first century.” He carefully closed the doors and opened them. A squeaky hinge was taken care of with a squirt of oil. He rolled his muscles, feeling the aches and pains along with the fatigue from too little sleep. After Maya went back inside the house, Jared wondered if it might not be good idea to sleep on the couch with his weapon close at hand. He’d hate to have anyone try to break into the house.
He walked inside and tried the doors again. The difference was incredible, with more light in the formerly dark room and a sense of the outdoors.
He looked up when a familiar patrol car slowly rolled up the drive. He muttered a few choice curses under his breath. The last thing he wanted was more uninvited company.
Deputy Wright climbed out of the car. She stooped to pat Harley, who had ambled up to greet her.
“Where was your guard dog last night?” she called out.
“I put him in the house when I called the station,” he replied. “I didn’t expect to see you again this soon.”
She shrugged off his less than polite greeting. “I meant to say something when you were in the station. I thought I’d take a look at the barn. See if I could pick up any prints. Have you been in there since last night?”
“Only long enough to make sure they hadn’t touched my bike,” he replied.
“Then you don’t mind if I look around in there?”
“Not at all. Go ahead.” Realizing she was focusing on his bare chest a little too much, he casually picked up his T-shirt to slip over his head, until he realized it was too grimy to put back on.
“Engle refused to give up his buddy,” she told him. “He claimed he was working alone. He said you must have been drunk if you thought you saw two men in there. Then he asked for a lawyer. He’s going to be arraigned tomorrow. I guess you know he’s pretty ticked off at you. If he makes bail, he and his friend just might come around again to even the score.”
“And here I was going to invite them to the housewarming,” he said lightly.
She didn’t smile. “The next time it might be your house, and they’ll be sure not to use damp rags.”
“I’ll make certain there’s always fresh batteries in my smoke alarms,” he told her.
She looked around, noted the new French doors and the bushes planted nearby. She turned back to him. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
“I only have so much vacation time before I return to work, and I wanted to get as much done as possible. If you find out anything more, will you let me know?”
“Sure thing.” She cocked her head. “Stories say there’s a treasure hidden somewhere out here. Maybe they were looking for that, although I guess if they were doing so they wouldn’t have tried to burn down your barn.”
“Considering how old it is, they probably thought they were doing me a favor. As for treasure, the only thing I’ve found out here are rusty nails and ancient horse droppings. I always figured it was another story, along with the ghosts,” he said easily.
“No wonder we always had to roust kids off the property,” Deputy Wright said, looking up at the house. “At least with you living out here, that should be one less headache for us.”
“We can hope,” he agreed.
She nodded, climbed back into her vehicle and drove around the house toward the outbuildings.
The next time they might try burning down your house with you in
it.
Icy fingers of dread traveled down Jared’s spine at the deputy’s ominous words. He wasn’t worried about himself—he knew he could make a run for it. But what about Rachel and Maya? Rachel was literally imprisoned within the house. Would burning it down destroy her completely? While Maya could physically leave the building during the daylight hours, would she be able to escape during the night, when she was invisible the way Rachel was during the day?
He knew he had no experience in this area. He doubted even a ghost hunter could tell him what was possible.
“Thanks, Wright, for pretty much ruining my morning,” he muttered as he picked up his tools and put them to one side before he went into the house.
He winced at the headache-causing sound of pots and pans clanging in the kitchen. And winced again when he realized the television was set to a morning talk show, where women were candidly discussing the lack of sex in their relationships, with no holds barred when going on to say where the men went wrong.
“That’s a hell of a lot more than I wanted to know.” He looked into the kitchen. “I guess you would tell the women to put some nasty mojo on their men.”
“What is mojo?” Maya rolled the word around in her mouth as if she was experimenting with the way it sounded.
“Voodoo.” He realized she wasn’t familiar with that word, either. “Black magic.”
She looked horrified. “Dark magic is never good. It will consume you until you are as dark and horrible as the magic you think you control. Except it controls you until you are nothing more than an empty shell.”
Jared tipped his head to one side. “So that’s what happened to Caleb? He went over to the dark side?” He made a mental note to dig out his Star Wars DVDs. He had an idea Maya would enjoy the science fiction adventure films. He noticed she’d avidly watched all the Lethal Weapon movies.
The woman lifted her chin in a haughty manner Jared was becoming all too familiar with. For a moment he felt as if he was facing the queen of an ancient land or perhaps the priestess of an even more ancient religion.
After the Midnight Hour Page 15