Jesse knelt and stroked the cat. “What are you going to name her?”
“I don’t know her personality yet. I’ll have to think about it.” Watching the man with the kitten, something lodged in her throat. She’d seen Liam sit like this with cats.
Her heart was knowing her Liam, but how was that possible? It was all too mystical to figure out.
He rose and his crooked smile came, the smile that was so like Liam’s. Her gaze fastened on his mouth, and she couldn’t look away. The curve of his lips straightened, and he stepped close enough to touch her. His hands came down on her shoulders. He bent his head toward hers.
She watched his lips grow nearer and she wanted to kiss him. Maybe a kiss would tell her the truth. She closed her eyes. “Liam,” she murmured. The sound of his name awoke her from her stupor.
She stepped back. “I’m sorry,” she choked out. “You can’t be Liam.” She scooped up the kitten and the food and ran for her bedroom. Even if Liam’s spirit was there, it wasn’t right.
Twenty-Eight
The kitten insisted on sleeping with Alanna. Every time she put the little rascal down, the cat clawed her way up the blankets to Alanna’s chest. Alanna finally gave up and nestled the tiny white cat close. Sometime near midnight she fell asleep.
It seemed she’d just closed her eyes when a shriek awoke her. She lay in the bed with her heart pounding out of her chest. Was it a dream or something real? Struggling to sit up, she realized the cat was hunched with her ears back. She’d heard something too.
She swung her legs to the floor and went to the window. The wail came again. From outside. She snatched up her robe and went to the door. Barry’s wide shoulders loomed in the hallway, and she clutched him with cold fingers.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” he said, his Southern drawl as soothing as his words. He draped his arm around her shoulders. “You should go back to bed, sugar.”
“But what was it? Some kind of animal?” She shuddered and realized no animal sounded like that.
“We’ve never figured out what it is. I think it’s a wildcat, but Mother is convinced it’s a banshee.”
“The banshee?” Alanna had never heard one. Shivers wracked her, and she clutched her robe more tightly. “Doesn’t that mean someone in your family is going to die?” A thought gripped her. Was this happening because she’d disturbed the music box?
“Of course not. Go on back to bed.” He guided her back to her door and pulled it shut behind him.
Alanna stood staring at the closed door. She didn’t want to stay here alone. Not when her mates were just down the hall. It would be easier to deal with together. They had to have heard that unearthly shriek and would be wondering about it.
She opened the door. Barry was gone. Scooping up the cat, she raced in bare feet down the hall to the back wing. Turning the corner, she collided with a solid body. They both screamed before she recognized Ciara.
Ciara clutched Alanna’s arm. “Lass, you’ll be scaring me to my grave. What was that sound?”
“Barry said his mother thinks it’s a banshee.”
Ciara led her back toward her bedroom. “And I’ll be believing it. If someone is dying tonight, it’s not going to be one of us.”
She pushed Alanna into the bedroom, where the rest of Ceol were sitting by the sides of the bed and on the floor. “Did all of you hear that?” Alanna asked.
“It would be waking the dead,” Fiona grumbled. “I was having a lovely dream.”
“We could tell ghost stories.” Ena smiled.
“I’ll not be listening,” Fiona said with a shudder.
Alanna found herself looking for Jesse. She didn’t want to even think about him, not after the way she’d nearly thrown herself at him in the kitchen. Still, she wanted him safe. “Where’s Jesse?”
“He was here a minute ago, but he said something about looking for her, the banshee.”
She hoped he wouldn’t run into Barry. She clasped her arms around herself and wished she had just gone back to bed.
Until the wail came again.
“Maybe we can see the banshee,” Ena said. “Anyone game to go with me?”
“I’ll go,” Alanna said. “It’s better than sitting here wondering what’s happening.”
“I’ll go too,” Ciara said.
“You’re all crazy!” Fiona grabbed a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around herself. “I’ll be staying here.”
“By yourself?” Ena whistled an eerie tune, and Fiona threw a pillow at her. “Come on. All for one and one for all.”
“Oh, fine.” Fiona tossed the blanket back on the bed. “Let’s get this over. Who’s going to be leading this brave party?”
“I want to,” Ena said. “It’s my idea, so I’ll be deserving the best chance of seeing the banshee.”
They trooped into the hallway after Ena. Alanna found the light switch and turned on the dim bulb. She wished Barry were with them. Or Jesse. What could four women do against a banshee? But if it was a banshee, what could anyone do?
She stayed close behind Ena as they wound through the halls to the stairway and down to the entry. Barry must have turned on the outside light, because its glow pushed back the shadows on the porch. But beyond the wash of light lurked total darkness.
“We’ll be needing to rethink this,” Fiona said. “It’s dark out there. The moon must be behind clouds.”
“Don’t be such a ninny,” Ena said. “Let’s go.” She opened the screen door, and it gave a shriek that made them all jump. “Sorry.”
The door slammed shut behind them. Alanna stared around the dark yard where nothing moved that she could see. The gator grunted in its pond, and she heard a splash.
“Maybe the gator ate the banshee,” Ena whispered.
The women giggled, and the oppression lifted from Alanna’s shoulders. Whatever it was, it couldn’t hurt them. She went past Ena to the steps.
“Wait a minute. We don’t have shoes on,” Fiona said. “What if there are poisonous snakes out there? Alanna has already been bitten.”
Alanna drew back from the top step. “You’re right. I got lucky once. We might not be so fortunate next time. We need to at least put on shoes.”
Before they could all go back inside, an anguished scream pierced the night. Alanna’s blood turned to ice, and she stared wildly around. This sound was different from the earlier one.
This one was human.
When it came again, she realized it was Patricia. The screams came from the window above their heads. “Stay here!” she told her friends. She ran back inside and up the stairs to the back stairway that led to the wing Richard and Patricia occupied. She found a light switch and turned on the bulb before plunging up the staircase.
She found Patricia standing at the top of the stairs in her nightgown. Screams poured from her throat. “Richard!” she screamed when she saw Alanna. She pointed back toward the door that stood open.
Alanna ran for the bedroom. Her steps slowed as she reached the open door. What would she find inside? She couldn’t imagine what would cause the horror on Patricia’s face or the keening pouring from her mouth.
A green lamp with a white shade illuminated the man lying on the floor. He’d vomited and his head lay in the bile. Alanna didn’t have to touch him to know he was dead. No one living had gray color like that. Her steps slowed, and she knelt beside her father-in-law’s body. Pressing her fingers to his throat, she checked his pulse. Nothing. His skin was cold too. Should she try CPR?
It couldn’t hurt, she decided. She grabbed the edge of a sheet and cleaned the vomit from his mouth. Counting off the beats, she began to administer CPR.
Patricia was still screaming at the top of the stairs, only now she called Barry’s name. Footsteps pounded up the stairs, and Barry’s voice called out. “Mother, what’s wrong?”
“In here!” Alanna shouted.
His shoes pounded across the landing, a
nd he burst into the bedroom. “What’s wrong?”
She paused the CPR, knowing the truth. “It’s your dad.” Her heart broke for what she was going to have to tell him. “I’m so sorry, Barry. I think he’s dead.”
He blanched and fell to his knees beside her. “You have to be wrong.”
She wanted to catch his hand and pull him back but knew he had to see for himself. He made an inarticulate noise, then laid his hand on his dad’s arm.
“Dad?” When he touched his father, he recoiled and a sob erupted from his throat.
Alanna embraced him, and he sank in her arms. “I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered.
“He can’t be dead.” His stare didn’t move from his father. He finally took a deep breath and straightened. “I have to pull myself together so I can help Mother.” In another moment, his cell phone was in his hand and he punched in 9–1–1. In a choked voice he told the dispatcher he’d found his father dead on the floor.
While he was on the phone, Alanna went to see if she could help Patricia. She found her mother-in-law seated on the top step and rocking back and forth.
Alanna touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Patricia. Is there anything I can do?”
With her swollen face and blotchy skin, Patricia wasn’t the put-together woman she’d been earlier in the day. “You’ve done enough.” Her voice was low and vicious. “He hasn’t been well—his heart. Worry over Barry caused this. It’s all your fault. Leave me alone with my son.”
Alanna’s hand dropped back to her side, and she stepped away. There was no way she could combat such irrational hatred. Without answering her mother-in-law, she went past her down the stairs. Tears burned her eyes. Richard hadn’t said much to her, and she didn’t really know him, but she grieved for Barry.
Jesse was waiting at the bottom of the steps. “Richard’s dead.” She hugged herself and stepped away from him.
“Dead?”
She nodded. “I think it was a heart attack.” In the distance, she heard a siren approaching. There was no need for the siren or for speed. No one could help Richard now. “I need to let in the paramedics.” She brushed past him.
He trailed her. “I can do it.”
She realized she’d dropped the kitten at some point. The feline wound herself around her ankles and mewed. Scooping her up, she headed for the front door without answering Jesse.
The ambulance came screaming up the drive. Her friends milled around the porch, obviously unaware of what had happened. Alanna stepped through the screen door and told them about Richard before the paramedics came rushing up the porch steps.
“I’ll show them where to go,” Jesse said.
Alanna let him. The thought of facing Patricia’s hatred again made her shudder. She sank onto a rocker on the porch.
Ciara knelt beside her. “Are you okay?”
“Just shaken,” she said, placing her hand over her belly.
“It was a banshee after all, you know,” Ena said.
“You can’t believe that,” Alanna said. “It was a heart attack.”
“Foretold by the banshee,” Ena said. “The legends don’t say the banshee causes the death. Just that it’s a warning.”
Alanna was too tired to make sense of her friend’s superstitions. “Did you see anything when you went exploring?”
Ena shook her head. “We were afraid to go far after we heard Patricia screaming.”
Jesse came back outside. “They’ll be bringing him down.”
From the upstairs window, she heard Patricia’s sobs kick up again. In spite of the hostility between them, Alanna’s heart ached for the woman. Alanna knew the pain of losing the man she loved.
Ciara stood. “I’m going inside. It’s late. Call me if you need me.”
Alanna nodded and said good night to her mates. Only Jesse stayed behind. He pulled another rocker over close. The mosquitoes whined in her ears, and the kitten kneaded her claws in her lap. She rubbed the tiny ears, and the rumble of the kitty’s purr soothed her. Leaning her head back against the chair, she closed her eyes. The warm night was so beautiful, even with the trauma that had gone on.
She’d be resting for just a minute, then go inside.
With her eyes closed, she could imagine it was Liam rocking beside her. Her breathing eased, and her body relaxed. She drifted into slumber.
“Alanna.”
The soft voice in her ear woke her. She kept her eyes closed. Liam would kiss her awake. He always did. She longed for his touch. For him to tuck her hair behind her ears so he could press his lips against her neck and make his way to her lips.
“Honey, it’s time to go to bed.” His fingers slipped her hair behind her ears. His lips left a warm trail on her neck and up to her lips.
Alanna inhaled the sweet aroma of his breath, relished the warm pressure of his lips. Liam had always been her soulmate. She was so lucky.
Then she remembered. The love of her life was lying in a cold grave.
Her eyelids flew open and she stared into Jesse’s face.
Twenty-Nine
Jesse punched his pillow. Morning would be here all too soon, and he hadn’t slept a wink. Every time he closed his eyes, memories flashed through his mind as if played on an old movie reel: Alanna’s first attempt at cooking dinner and her tears when the bangers burned, watching her twist a curl around her finger while she read, her shriek when he threw her in the cold waves on their honeymoon.
No, not their honeymoon. Her honeymoon with Liam. Jesse was finding it harder and harder to keep track of reality. Maybe he didn’t want to. The pleasure of kissing her last night had been exquisite, yet somehow so familiar. If this was what it meant to go crazy, maybe he didn’t want to be sane.
Guilt rose from the depths of his belly. He’d kissed another man’s wife. That was wrong. Even in his rattled state, he knew it was wrong, but he seemed unable to tame his obsession with Alanna. Maybe he needed an exorcism, but that didn’t seem right either. If Liam’s love for Alanna was strong enough to survive the grave, what right did his murderer have to sever it?
He ran his hand through his hair. The decision about what to do wasn’t easy. Maybe he could pick up the pieces of who he was without being around her all the time. But still, he couldn’t bring himself to leave, not when she’d been attacked twice. She needed his protection, didn’t she? Or was he fooling himself about that too?
When he’d seen the detective at his parents’ house yesterday, he thought Adams was there to arrest him. The more he discovered about himself and Liam, the more he despised himself for what he must have done. Maybe he should turn himself in and get it over with. Not only had he kissed a married woman, but he’d put the moves on the wife of his late best friend. He was scum of the earth.
He rolled over and closed his eyes. No more thinking. It hurt too much.
By the time the sun pushed streaks of light across his floor he’d gotten barely three hours of sleep. A racket outside roused him. He stumbled to the window and glanced into the yard to see workers tearing out windows in the old summerhouse. The contractor’s crew had finally arrived.
Barry stood talking to a man in jeans. Jesse’s gaze lingered on Barry. Dressed in khaki slacks and a pale blue oxford shirt taut across his wide shoulders, Barry dwarfed the worker. Jesse could see how he’d be attractive to women. Did Alanna love him? She must have some feelings for him or she wouldn’t have married him. The realization stung, and Jesse glanced at his watch. Seven. Later than he thought.
He glanced at the scene outside again. Why hadn’t Barry sent the workers away? This was hardly the morning to be working on a construction project, not after Richard’s death last night.
He quickly showered and dressed, then went downstairs. The group was eating cereal in the dining room. The heavy curtains were still pulled, and no one had turned on any lights. There was barely enough light to see their bowls.
“Good morning,” he said.
His gaze found Alanna at the end of the ta
ble. She glanced at him, and a flush stained her cheeks before she looked away. Was she remembering last night’s kiss too? He could think of little else.
Ena mumbled good morning, as did the other women. Grady nodded and shoveled another bite of cereal into his mouth. His skin was pale under the blotchiness on his cheeks. Jesse remembered Richard was his father, too, though he’d seen no evidence of a close relationship.
Jesse couldn’t stand the gloom. He flipped on the chandelier over the table. Everyone blinked at the sudden illumination. Grady winced and hunched his shoulders. Jesse wanted to tell the man he was sorry for his loss, but he thought the attention would bother Grady.
“Are we practicing?” he asked.
“No practice today,” Fiona said. “Out of respect.”
“Of course. The family needs space.” He glanced at Alanna and found her staring at him. She quickly averted her gaze. “So what are you all going to do today?”
“I thought I’d go shopping,” Fiona said. “I need some supplies for my jewelry. Then Ciara and I thought we’d look for costumes for the tour.”
Ena glanced at Grady. “I’ll be hanging out here.” She sent a comforting smile Grady’s direction when he looked her way.
“I’ve got a-an errand to run,” Alanna said. She rose and carried her bowl toward the back door. He could see her through the window feeding an old mutt. So like her.
Jesse wanted to follow her, but he didn’t dare. She might order him to leave, and he wasn’t ready to do that. “Can you drop me in the city?” he asked Ciara.
She nodded. “At your parents’?”
“Sure, that’d be great.” He could borrow his mother’s car today. He’d need to buy his own soon, but his savings was dwindling fast. The money from the tour would help replenish it.
Alanna avoided him, or so it seemed, until he climbed into the van with the other girls. He had to find out more information about who he was today, but he wasn’t sure where to start. Ciara dropped him at the curb outside his parents’ home. He waved good-bye and went inside, where he found his mother doing laundry.
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