Shain stroked her hair, tangling his fingers in it. She trembled against him, the defiance she had faced him with earlier buried beneath her raging panic.
“Alaynia, honey.” The endearment penetrated her cloud of terror as he laid his chin on her head. “Listen to me. I can’t explain what’s happened any more than you can. But I’ll help you face it. I won’t leave you to handle it on your own.”
“You don’t understand.” Alaynia pulled back in his arms to study his face. “This can’t be happening. You’re ... you’re not real in my world. You’re ...” Drawing in a breath, she forced herself to continue, “You’re dead. If you were alive in my time, you’d ... you’d be over a hundred and sixty years old!”
Brown eyes crinkling in amusement, Shain lifted his hand from her hair and touched his face. “Nope, I’m still alive. I can feel myself.” He touched her face next. “And you’re real, too. Very, very real.”
Hesitantly, Alaynia covered his hand with her own, then reached up to feel the side of his face with her other hand. The blue-black shadow of his beard rasped against her palm, and she traced the firm line of his chin with her fingertips. When her index finger brushed his lower lip, the softness contrasted with the semi-roughness of his face. He bent his head slowly, and she willingly lifted her mouth to meet his.
No ghost could have kissed her like that—sipping just a taste at first, feathering a faint brush of his tongue across her lips, then catching her mouth more fully with firmer pressure. No ghost could have such a solid chest and shoulders—a faintly sweat-slick neck beneath her touch. No figment of her imagination could have sent such an intense, unexpected spiral of desire curling through her veins—brought that little whimper of need from her and answered it with a moan of demand for more of his own.
Curling her fingers in his hair and her other arm around his neck, Alaynia leaned against him and he tightened his embrace in return. His kiss deepened, drawing her further into the sensations flowing between them. When he lifted his head a long moment later, she languidly raised her eyelids to meet his desire-laden gaze.
“Maybe you are a witch,” Shain whispered. “You’ve bewitched me from the first second I saw you getting out of that machine.”
“Ahem!”
Alaynia jerked from Shain’s arms, and a flush of embarrassment immediately replaced the heat of desire on her cheeks. A teenage girl stood barely five feet from them, her arms crossed over her chest and a slippered foot patting the ground beneath the hem of her white gown. Blue eyes under a mop of golden curls fixed Alaynia with a disdainful look, but Alaynia thought she detected a twinkle of mirth in the disdain. The girl’s lips appeared to be struggling against a tendency to curve in laughter.
“Brother,” she drawled sweetly to Shain, “am I to take this as a new lesson on how to greet our guests at Chenaie? The next time Billy Ben comes over, I’d sure like to impress him with knowing how to show hospitality in a modern way.”
“You do and I’ll haul you out to the woodshed,” Shain threatened. “After I knock young Billy Ben on his ass, of course.”
The girl threw back her head and laughed, then propped her hands on slim hips and cocked her head to one side. “You’d have to ask Lee’s army for help in dragging me to that woodshed, brother dear. You don’t have the heart to do it yourself.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be that lenient with Billy Ben, sister, dear,” Shain warned in only a half-teasing tone. “I want you to meet Alaynia Mirabeau, Jeannie. Alaynia, this is my bratty little sister.”
“Hello, Jeannie,” Alaynia said, extending her hand.
Jeannie looked puzzled for a moment, then reached out to meet Alaynia’s grasp. “Pleased, I’m sure,” she murmured. “Do all women where you come from shake hands like men do?”
Realizing her mistake, Alaynia threw a pleading look for assistance at Shain.
“Alaynia’s from Boston,” Shain said, avoiding a direct response to Jeannie’s question. “Has Jake already been by here?”
“He dropped off a strange-looking case and said he needed to borrow a mule,” Jeannie confirmed with a shrug. “I asked him what he needed the mule for, but he was acting really strange, even for Jake. He said you’d explain when you got here.”
“My ... uh ...” Alaynia quickly marshaled her thoughts. “The road we came here on was empty,” she said to Shain, hoping he would get her meaning. “I didn’t see my Uncle Jake.”
“We came down a different fork,” Shain explained. His admonishing glance told her that he realized she was asking the whereabouts of her car, but warned her to let him tell their prepared story himself. “I guess you didn’t notice, since you were riding behind me.”
“Jake’s your uncle?” Jeannie asked. “Gee, I’ve known him almost all my life, but he never mentioned having a niece. And what on earth are you doing, making Alaynia ride over here to visit on your horse, Shain? Surely it wouldn’t have been that much of an inconvenience for you to come back and get our buggy.”
As Shain nonchalantly drawled the false tale of Alaynia’s background to his sister in a convincing manner, Alaynia bit her lower lip in anxiety. Her own feminine instincts told her that Jeannie was absorbing everything with a tinge of disbelief which, despite her young years, she managed to cover up—at least to Shain. Still, Alaynia had read enough about Southern customs in this century to realize that Jeannie was mulling over the discrepancies in Alaynia’s arrival. A proper Southern lady, planning to stay for a while, would have arrived in a buggy piled with her trunks. Shain’s words about Jeannie’s sharpness replayed in her mind, but right now she could only go along with the charade.
She studied Jeannie’s white, ground-length gown. The long sleeves came all the way down to her slender wrists, and the slightly scooped neck bared only a scant expanse of skin, covering even Jeannie’s collarbones. Thank God she’d had Patti make her the nineteenth-century outfits, even though she’d had absolutely no concept of the use she would put the clothing to when she ordered it. But at least she hadn’t arrived wearing something Jeannie would consider scandalous—or had to explain why she didn’t have clothing of her own to the young girl.
Then, recalling Jeannie’s slippered foot, Alaynia glanced down to make sure her running shoes were hidden beneath the hem of her own gown.
“I would think not,” she became aware of Jeannie’s saying, and concentrated on the young girl again. “Why, Alaynia couldn’t possibly stay over there with Jake and Zeke. Didn’t you write to your uncle first and tell him that you were coming, Alaynia?”
“Uh ... I did, but when I didn’t hear back from him, I just assumed it was all right to come visit,” Alaynia said hurriedly.
“But what about your family in Boston?” Jeannie prodded. “Surely they didn’t let you go off on your own without being assured you’d have a place with a relative at the end of your trip?”
“Alaynia doesn’t have any other family,” Shain put in. “And you’re forgetting your manners again, little sister. It’s awfully darned hot out here, and it’s not very polite to make our guest stand out here and endure your inquisition.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jeannie apologized. “Let’s go inside, Alaynia. I’ll get you something cool to drink and then show you up to the Rose Room. It’s right next to mine.”
“No, you won’t give her the Rose Room, Jeannie,” Shain contradicted sternly. “You’d be popping in and out of it every chance you got. Show her to the Camellia Room, where she’ll have some privacy.”
“That room’s right next to yours, Shain,” Jeannie replied. “But then, you’re never home, so I guess you won’t be intruding.”
Jeannie flounced around and headed for the porch steps, but Alaynia didn’t follow at first. “Aren’t you coming in?” she asked Shain.
“I need to go over to Jake’s get his agreement to go along with our story. Thank God he didn’t let anything slip while he was here.”
“Yes,” Alaynia conceded worriedly. “Still, I don’t think Jeanni
e believes us completely. And what am I going to do while you’re gone? What if I screw up somehow and make her more suspicious? Shain ...”
Shain placed his hands on her shoulders. “We don’t have any choice, Alaynia. If you run into any problems, just allude to the differences in your backgrounds. Jeannie’s only fourteen. You ought to be able to handle this.”
“But there are other people I’ll have to contend with, too. You said you had a cook, and other servants.”
“Alaynia,” Jeannie called from the porch. “Are you coming? You don’t even have a bonnet on. You shouldn’t stay out in the sun so long—you’ll get freckles.”
Ignoring Alaynia’s pleading look, Shain gently squeezed her shoulders before he removed his hands. “I won’t be gone long,” he promised.
Alaynia waited until he mounted his stallion and started back down the driveway. Then she stiffened her shoulders, walked over, and climbed the veranda steps. Jeannie stood holding the door open, and just before Alaynia went through it, she turned and glanced down the driveway. Shain had pulled his horse to a halt, and he waved briefly at her when he caught her look. Despite the distance separating them, Alaynia thought she also saw him nod his head in reassurance.
Turning, she walked ahead of Jeannie into the huge manor house she had set out to find earlier in the day. Only she entered as a visitor, instead of as its owner, as she had anticipated.
Chapter 7
Francesca and Sylvia watched Alaynia disappear into the house, and Sylvia grumbled, “Now, you tell me, Frannie. How can you maintain an emotional distance over this? Alaynia’s scared to death, and if she should fall in love with Shain, why, think what could happen! They could end up separated, with her beyond his reach in the future!”
“Good heavens, Sylvia. They’ve just met.”
“Yeah, and there’s already sparks flying between them. And you saw that kiss. It was so tender—so sweet. Shain didn’t just kiss her to calm her—he kissed her because he’s been wanting to do that since the second she stepped out of that car.”
“Our assignment is to talk to Basil, Sylvia. Not to get involved in any relationship between Shain and Alaynia.”
“Frannie, how are we gonna reason with this ghost fellow if we can’t even find him?” Sylvia asked in exasperation. “I’ve never dealt with one of these human spirits before—a ghost who stayed on earth. He’s evidently got a measure of power in his state of being. But, geez, how can he get away with being such a ... a demon?”
“That’s one of the things we’ll have to figure out—why he’s acting like this,” Francesca explained, attempting to ignore Sylvia’s first question. “Something’s happened to change Basil. He’s not a demon, Sylvia, but he’s definitely acting differently than the loving grandfather that Shain remembers.”
“But we have to find him and pin him down long enough to talk to, in order to figure out why, don’t we?” Sylvia repeated.
“Of course we do,” Francesca admitted grudgingly.
“And that’s not gonna be easy, is it? We can’t even see him if he doesn’t want us to, can we? We’ve been looking all over this plantation for him.”
“We’ll just have to look again. Come on.”
Francesca flew from Chenaie’s roof and, after rolling her eyes briefly in irritation, Sylvia followed. First they flew into the sprawling barn and explored every nook and cranny of the enormous loft, with Francesca checking one end, where broken farm implements and open crates of worn-out harnesses and saddles were stored. Sylvia investigated the other side, searching among the bales of hay in neat piles, waiting to be cut open and forked down to the stalls lining the bottom story of the barn. She poked her head over one bale and let out a cry of delight.
“What?” Francesca said, immediately appearing at Sylvia’s shoulder. “Did you find him?”
“No, but look. Oh, aren’t they sweet?”
Sylvia propped her hip on a hay bale and reached down to stroke the tabby-striped cat’s head. It purred loudly and half-closed its eyes. Four variegated-colored kittens suckled its breasts, their tiny paws pushing against the cat’s stomach in relish as they filled their small tummies.
“Wonder how I missed seeing these before?” Sylvia mused. “I’m sure I looked behind this hay a while ago.”
Francesca tenderly ran her finger along the back of a butterscotch kitten. “Maybe the mother got disturbed in her previous nest and moved them here,” she said. “Cats do that—all mothers are protective of their babies, until they’re ready to bring them out into the world and show them off.”
“Thanks, Frannie.” When Francesca looked at her in mystery, Sylvia continued, “I thought you might be thinking I hadn’t searched seriously for Basil up here, since I didn’t find the kittens the first time.”
“Why, of course you searched diligently, Sylvia. You’re very dedicated.”
Allowing herself a tiny glow at Francesca’s praise, Sylvia glanced back at the kittens. “The mother’s not afraid of us, so she won’t be disturbed and have to move her babies again. Isn’t it nice that animals can see us, Frannie?”
“Very,” Francesca agreed. “It can get lonely when you’re on assignment, and animals are extremely good company. One of my angels told me that some nursing homes on earth are allowing their patients to have pets now. They help keep elderly people’s spirits up.”
“Hum,” Sylvia mused. “Maybe we’re going about this search the wrong way.”
“I’m open to any idea you might have.”
“Well, the animals can see this Basil guy, too. What if he has a special pet here? We might be able to find him by watching the animals.”
“Let’s try,” Francesca agreed.
They flew from the loft and hovered for a few seconds in the open area of the barn, watching the horses in the nearest stalls. A pair of matched grays stood in adjoining stalls close to the door, both drowsing in the heat. Their stalls were well tended, with clean straw on the floor and full water buckets hanging beside feed troughs stuffed with hay.
“Must be their buggy horses,” Francesca said. “Someone is probably planning on going visiting later, or else I imagine these horses would be out in the pasture, getting some fresh air.”
“Uh-huh,” Sylvia agreed. “Let’s check the rest of the barn.”
They flew on down the aisle, peering into each stall as they went. The remaining stalls were empty, though each was in as pristine condition as the one containing the grays. At the back of the barn, they found Shain’s buggy between two farm wagons. Sylvia stared at the buggy in puzzlement.
“It looks sort of worn out, doesn’t it, Frannie? I thought buggies back in this time were sort of a status symbol for their owners—you know, the way cars are in future times.”
“It is faded in places on the outside,” Francesca acknowledged. “But it looks like the seats have been recently recovered.”
Sylvia lifted a finger, and the buggy top slowly began moving backward with a squeak of rusty hinges. Reversing the direction of her waving finger, Sylvia shook her head as the buggy top settled back into place.
“Needs some oil or grease,” she said. “Or some of that WD-40 stuff that comes in those spray cans.”
A yellow and blue spray can appeared in the air, but Francesca reached out and swiped it away from the buggy hinge. “Sylvia! You aren’t supposed to do things like that!”
“Aw, Frannie, no one would know. Just a little squirt on each hinge?”
Francesca contemplated the rusty hinges and faded paint on the buggy for a moment. Finally, giving an agreeable shrug, she pointed the can’s nozzle outward.
“Wait a second, Frannie,” Sylvia said. “Here.”
A small, hollow piece of red plastic appeared. Sylvia grabbed it and fit it into the nozzle on the end of the can. “There. I’ve seen women use this stuff on their office chairs when they start squeaking. I guess this little piece aims the goop inside, into the spots that rub together and squeak.”
“Go
op?” Francesca asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Goop, oil—I’ve never been interested in just exactly what’s inside the can, but I’ve seen it work. You spray, while I wiggle the buggy top.”
Francesca complied, and Sylvia waved her finger back and forth while the other angel poked the plastic straw into the hinge and sprayed. When that hinge stopped squeaking, they flew over the buggy and performed the same maintenance on the other side. Smiling at her companion in satisfaction, Francesca stepped back and flicked her wrist. The can sailed into the air but, instead of disappearing as Francesca had intended, it landed on the floor with a plop.
Francesca stared at it for a second, then laughed. “I forgot. You made it materialize, Sylvia, so you have to make it vanish.”
Sylvia nonchalantly blinked her eyes once, and the WD-40 can disappeared. She raised and lowered the buggy top once more, nodding her head in pleasure when it moved smoothly and silently on its hinges.
“Okay, Frannie, that’s done. Where do you want to look next?”
“Wherever else there are animals, I suppose. The pastures?”
Sylvia flew out through the back barn door, and the two angels glided over the empty corral and on out over the pastures beyond. Closest to the barn were a few cows, two with calves. The adjacent pasture held a lone bull. Cross-fenced in various sections, they found a few more horses—mares with colts in one, several geldings in another. All of the animals appeared to be interested only in grazing.
They flew back over the barn and investigated the pens on the other side. One held older pigs, with a sow and piglets occupying their own private section. Past that stood a faded, gray chicken coop, with dozens of hens pecking away inside the wire fence.
“I don’t think Basil would have a hog or chicken for a pet,” Francesca mused.
Sylvia giggled, then snapped her fingers. “A dog! I saw a kennel over there. Come on, Frannie.”
They glided away from the chicken coop and hovered above the kennel. Two of the redbone hounds glanced up at them, but the other three just lay in the shade, tongues lolling out in pants. Safely ensconced in a separate section, a half-dozen puppies gamboled with each other, while the mother watched tolerantly from the doghouse door.
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