Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

L eo bit back a sigh as Jessica fled down the stairs. His little psychic was the most skittish female he’d ever met. She was also the bravest. She had faced down his vengeful ex-wife, despite Alexis’s hate fueled powers.

How could I ever have been such a fool , he wondered as he had many times over the long years of his entrapment. They had met in his last year in college. She was a beautiful woman and he’d been beguiled by her outer beauty. By the time he discovered that her outer beauty concealed an ugly soul, it was too late. She’d told him she was pregnant, so he’d done the honorable thing and married her. Honorable, but foolish.

She hadn’t been pregnant. She just hadn’t had any interest in getting a job, and she’d thought that she could turn him into someone he was not. She hadn’t been successful, and she’d made both of them miserable in the process. At least he had been miserable. She seemed to derive some type of vicious satisfaction out of pointing out his shortcomings and the many ways he’d failed her.

The move to Fairhaven Falls had been one of those failures.

He’d started a logging business on land he’d inherited from his grandparents just outside of town. Alexis liked the idea of being married to a successful businessman. She didn’t like the fact that he’d actually worked with his crews instead of sitting in an office wearing a suit and tie every day.

She also hated the fact that the town was so small. And she despised the fact that so many Others had chosen to live in Fairhaven Falls. He’d offered her a divorce but she refused, although he’d had no idea why at the time. He couldn’t bring himself to force her so he buried himself in work instead. She’d found other interests and even though they continued to occupy the same house they rarely saw each other. He’d even moved into one of the upstairs bedrooms.

It hadn’t been the marriage and family he’d always envisioned but he’d accepted it. It wasn’t until the last year of his life that everything fell apart.

A few years before that his half-brother had come looking for a job. Tim was six years younger than him and they had never been particularly close, but he’d been family. Leo had foolishly assumed that meant he could trust him. Tim had been the one who remained in the office, managing the business side of things—or rather mismanaging it as he’d discovered too late.

His brother was using company funds to pay his own bills and siphoning off money into his own accounts. He was also having an affair with Alexis—an affair that had apparently been going on since not long after he came to town.

If he had loved her, the betrayal would have devastated him. Instead it only made him feel sick.

Tim had been behaving more and more erratically and Leo had been forced to spend more time in the office. That was when he discovered that Tim was stealing money from the company.

He’d fired him immediately—and that’s when he discovered the affair. Alexis had been furious with him and ordered him to take Tim back. When he refused, she told him they loved each other, even though he knew that his brother had been having a torrid affair with his secretary for the past six months.

He’d done his best to warn her, but she hadn’t wanted to listen. Just as she never listened to him.

He told her he was going to start divorce proceedings, but that night Tim had shown up at the house ranting about how much Leo owed him.

“I owe you?” he asked in astonishment. “You’re the one who’s been stealing from my company.”

“It should have been my company. Our grandparents should have left the land to me.”

He didn’t bother pointing out that they’d been his mother’s parents, not Tim’s mother’s. He just sighed, tired of the whole sordid business.

“Just consider yourself lucky that I’m not prosecuting you for theft. You’re not getting anything else out of me.”

“Fine,” Alexis snapped. “Tim doesn’t need you anyway. He’s twice the businessman you are. We’ll be fine without you.”

“We?” Tim gave a harsh laugh. “There’s no we, you stupid bitch. I’m getting what he owes me and getting the hell out of this town. By myself.” Alexis looked so shocked he almost felt sorry for her, but then Tim pulled out a gun and pointed it at him. “Now give me the fucking password.”

She didn’t even seem to notice the gun.

“You told me you loved me. That you wanted to be with me.”

“Why would I want to be with you? There are a lot younger and prettier fish in the sea, ones who know how to please a man instead of lying there like a rag doll.”

Alexis screeched and flew at him and everything went into slow motion. He saw Tim raise the gun and tried to shove her out of the way. Instead a wave of agony radiated through his chest. The last thing he heard before darkness surrounded him was a second shot.

For a long time, it had been as if he were asleep, a nightmarish sleep with occasional flashes of wakefulness, a faint sense that time was passing. However as the fiftieth anniversary of his death drew nearer, those moments came more frequently. As they did, so did the knowledge that he was trapped, here in the house he had once loved so much.

Alexis’s hatred had wrapped everything in a dark, sticky web from which there was no escape. She had been so angry and so intent on causing harm. When he realized what she was doing, he had tried to counteract her actions, even though he did not have the strength of her hatred.

But then Jessica had come along and freed him. She had called him, her light piercing the darkness that surrounded him. He remembered standing in the circle she had drawn, aware of himself in a way he hadn’t been for so long. Aware and warmed by her presence. He’d been cold for so long that even after she had released him, he hadn’t wanted to leave the warmth of her companionship.

He’d felt a tug, something trying to pull him away, but he’d looked at her—small, pretty, almost delicate looking despite the strength of her will—and he’d known he couldn’t leave.

He hadn’t considered the possibility that she might not stay; that she might have moved on. But she had stayed. She’d even moved into his house. She could see him, and the loneliness which had surrounded him for so long vanished.

At first he had been content just with that, but as time wore on, he realized he wanted more. He wanted things he could never have. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to hold her hand when they were watching television, or stroke her hair when she was having a bad day. And more than anything, he wanted to kiss her, to feel those soft pretty lips beneath his.

He’d never really considered the afterlife while he was still alive. If he had, he would have assumed one was no longer troubled by the desires of the flesh. But it wasn’t true. He wanted her the way a man wants a woman. His body responded to her nearness. He knew it was an illusion, a memory of an erection rather than the real thing, but it felt real.

He gave a frustrated sigh and the doors to the balcony flew open again. Damn. His ability to manipulate physical objects intentionally had increased, but as a result, so had the unintentional consequences when his emotions triggered physical events

Although he didn’t need to be in physical proximity to close the doors, he automatically crossed the room towards them, then hesitated when something caught his attention. When he had been standing here with Jessica earlier, he’d been too focused on her and the delightful discovery that he could now detect her sweet floral scent to pay much attention to anything else. This time he realized something else.

Usually when he approached the boundaries of the building, he encountered an invisible barrier, as if the air was too thick for him to move through it. He didn’t feel it now. Had that changed as well?

He cautiously moved out onto the balcony expecting at any moment to be slammed back into the house. Instead, he made it almost to the edge before the air thickened. There was a certain logic to it. The balcony was, after all, part of the building. But he didn’t think he’d ever gotten this far before.

Have I tried before? Or had he just assumed it wasn’t possible? Either way, he was grateful for the change and for the wider view out over the town to the mountains beyond.

He loved Fairhaven Falls. When he’d moved here, he’d felt as if he were coming home, even though he’d been born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. Perhaps it was because his grandparents had lived there. Whatever the reason, his love for the town had never changed, despite his unhappiness. In fact, he sometimes thought it was the only thing that had kept him going during the long, unhappy years of his marriage.

It still seemed so familiar. There were a few new buildings, but most of the houses surrounding him were the same ones that had been there when he first moved in. There were a few changes—an addition here, a new roof there, sleek new cars parked in the driveways, and a tree he remembered his neighbor planting, now grown tall and majestic—but overall it still felt the same.

As he smiled down in the quiet street below, a flash of color caught his attention. A small elderly woman was walking briskly down the street wearing a neon green tracksuit so bright it almost seemed to vibrate.

Not a woman, he realized as she drew closer and he saw pale green skin beneath the mop of short white curls. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.

Then she came to a dead halt directly in front. He’d concealed his appearance, but she was looking directly up at him and he was sure that she could see him. Dark eyes, curiously compelling, studied his face.

“It’s about time,” she said briskly.

He couldn’t help himself.

“About time for what?”

She didn’t seem the least bit surprised by his response, just wagged her finger at him.

“We’re already into October. You’d better get busy.”

“Busy doing what?” he asked, then blinked when he realized she was no longer there.

How could she have vanished so quickly and so completely? Was she a ghost as well, he wondered, then immediately rejected the idea. There had been something so vibrant, so alive about her.

A memory tugged at him, but once again, it eluded him.

And what am I supposed to be doing?

She seemed to think he should know, but there was so little he actually could do. Except to continue trying to strengthen my abilities. Could that have been what she meant?

He thought back to earlier that morning and how much he’d enjoyed teasing Jessica by pulling the covers down. And about that first moment when he’d breathed in her scent, as if he were really standing there next to her. Were the two related? Did strengthening his abilities in one area strengthen other areas as well?

If he could see and hear and now smell, what if he could taste? What if he could touch? He thought about what she’d said about testing his newly discovered sense of smell with the variety of scents in the kitchen.

Should he see how far this newfound ability extended? He hesitated for a moment, then projected himself down into the kitchen. Although he had little difficulty moving within the manor, the fact that Jessica was already in the kitchen made it easier.

He veiled his appearance as he always did in the restaurant, but Cody looked over and grinned at him.

“Dude.”

Perhaps it was because Cody had been present during the banishment rite. Or perhaps it was because brownies were not only resistant to glamour, but also bonded to their chosen places. Whatever the reason, Cody had always been able to spot him. They’d even talked a few times, although fortunately it had always been when they were alone. As far as he could tell Cody had never told anyone else about him. Cody didn’t try to talk to him now, just grinned again before he left the kitchen.

He had materialized directly behind Jessica and he couldn’t resist bending down and breathing her in once again, half afraid it had been a fluke, but he could still catch her sweet floral fragrance.

If anything it seemed stronger, sweeter. Unable to resist, he tried brushing a quick kiss to the curve of her neck, hoping perhaps he could taste her. He could feel her skin against his mouth, but only as a resistance. He couldn’t taste her, couldn’t tell if her skin was warm or cool. And although he could imagine how silky her skin would feel, he couldn’t sense that either.

And yet she responded to his touch. He saw her shiver slightly, her nipples tightening beneath the pretty dress. Not for the first time, he wondered what those tempting little buds looked like—pale pink or dusky coral or somewhere in between. He’d frequently been tempted to spy on her and find out, but he was a man of his word—a ghost of his word—and he wouldn’t violate her confidence.

Then her scent deepened and he had the sudden suspicion it was due to arousal. If his suspicion was correct, then the brush of his mouth against her skin had pleased her. Was it possible?

A pot clattered to the ground as a surge of excitement went through him. Jessica frowned up at him over her shoulder. Even concealed as he was, she seemed to be looking directly into his face.

Stop that , she mouthed.

He couldn’t tell her it had been an accident because he couldn’t make himself heard to just one person. Or could he? It occurred to him that it was another limitation that he’d never thought to test.

“Sorry,” he said, his voice just barely above a whisper.

Her eyes widened and she took a quick look around, but no one else reacted.

“I don’t think they can hear me.” A little louder this time, but there was still no reaction.

“I’m just going to go check on tonight’s reservations,” she announced, hurrying out of the room and into the former butler’s pantry that had been converted into a small office.

“What are you doing?” she demanded as he materialized in front of her. “What if they’d heard you?”

“But they didn’t hear me. I never thought to test it before but it seems as if I can direct my words specifically to you. And possibly Cody,” he added.

“What do you mean?”

“Cody can see me.”

She sighed. “Damn. I was afraid of that.”

“Why does it bother you so much?”

She looked away from him, pink flushing her pale cheeks.

“He’s not exactly discreet.”

“Isn’t he? You didn’t know that he could see me, and he’s never mentioned it to anyone else.”

“I suppose not,” she conceded but she didn’t look any happier.

They were only a few inches apart in the small space and he gave in to a sudden impulse, placing his finger under her chin and applying a little pressure. To his utter shock, she responded to the gesture, raising her head to look at him as her eyes went wide.

“How did you do that?”

“I have absolutely no idea. Could you feel my hand?”

“Not exactly. Just a little… pressure, but I knew what you wanted me to do.”

“Do you know what I want now?” he asked, and lowered his head.