Easton: Forbidden: Paranormal Romance

by Kathi S. Barton

  “I love you that much and more, but it’s not the same.” She shook her head, and he could see that she was very upset about it. “Your mom, she gave me some pictures of you and her. There weren’t very many, as you know, but enough that I can pull them out and show Alex what a wonderful big sister he had. And Abby, he’ll have her as a sister too, that he can tell her what I told him about you.”

  “I love Abby too. She’s so pretty. Like a doll. Alex is pretty too, but he looks nothing like Mom. She told me that he looks like you a whole bunch. I won’t get to see him grow up.” He didn’t ask her why she had to move on, but knew that whatever Mary had needed done, she’d finished. He wondered about Peaches, and asked her what she was waiting for before leaving. “I don’t want to go. I don’t know how to find out if I can stay and watch over Alex, but I don’t want to leave him.”

  Things raced around in his head while he was trying to think of something to say to her. To have her doing what was best for her. When he thought about Alex growing up, it occurred to him what was going to happen someday.

  “He’ll not be able to see you for very long—you know that, don’t you?” She told him that she’d make him see her. “How can you do that, Peaches? He’s just a little baby right now, and I hear him laughing a little. You did teach him that, I know. But sooner or later, he’s not going to believe enough to know that you’re there for him. Understand?”

  “Yes. Like my dad...like Wendell did, he’ll forget me too.” He told her that it would never be like that for him. “Then what happens? He just forgets that I’m his sister and a ghost? I don’t want him to.”

  “I don’t either, baby, but that’s the way things go.” She asked about Wally, the ghost that hung out with Cam. “Have you talked to Wally about it? Have you asked him what he feels by sticking around all the time?”

  He wanted so badly to tell her that she could stay, that he’d be there for her, but he didn’t know how that was going to work. What would she do when the one person that she was staying for didn’t see her anymore? Would Alex be able to see her when he got older because of the magic that they all shared? He just didn’t know enough to give her the right direction in this. So, doing what he thought needed to be done, he called Henry. He would have the best answers. The other man said that he’d be right over, and true to his word, in ten minutes, he was seated with them.

  “I’m sorry that it’s so late.” Henry, as good natured as he usually was, told him not to worry about it. “Peaches has questions, and I don’t know how to answer them. Can you talk to her?”

  “I can and I will.” He looked at Peaches then, and smiled. “Honey, you don’t want to go on, do you?”

  “No. I want to say here with Alex and keep him company. I can tell him things about Momma that Uncle Easton doesn’t know.” Henry nodded, and she took that as she could stay. “I promise you that I will watch over him so that nothing ever happens to him. He won’t even get a scraped up knee while I’m there.”

  “Scraped up knees are a part of life, honey. You can’t take that from him. If you do, then he’ll never grow up being a man of the world. He’ll be hurt when you’re not around, because you will need to rest, and then what happens?” Peaches looked at him as Henry continued. “What happens when he grows into a man? Have you thought about him having a wife and children of his own? What sort of effects you’ll have on him by being around all the time? Wally doesn’t have anyone here. No one that he stays with all the time that would find him annoying. Even me. He only comes to me when I call for him. I think we’d both be irritated if he were there with every step I took, don’t you think?”

  “But I can tell him stories.” Henry asked her what sort of stories she could tell him. “I could tell him about how I felt him move when Momma was having him. I can tell him about...I can show him where I lived. I can tell him about Momma being so pretty and stuff.”

  “Then what? That doesn’t seem like a great deal if you think about it. Would you then tell him about how you died? How your mother died? You know that the rules state that you can’t share that knowledge of your death with someone that is family. If you were to take him to the cemetery, what do you think he’ll see there?” She asked if he’d see her. “He’d see that you were but a child when you were killed. That you and your mother had died on the same day. I think that he’d want to find out more, and then dig into how you died, as well as his mother. Tell me, Peaches, what do you think he’ll feel about that?”

  “I want to stay here.” Henry said that he had no problem with her staying, but she was going to have to decide what she was going to do while on earth. “I don’t want to do anything but stay with my little brother.”

  “I can’t let you do that, honey. It’s why most ghosts are told to move on, did you know that? Because they begin to be bitter about the one that lived. I know you say that you’d never feel that way, but when Alex begins to do things that you were never able to do, how will you feel about him then? When he can play with his friends. Go to school. In order to stay, you have to have a reason for it. One that does not involve Alex.”

  She started sobbing, and his heart broke for her. Easton wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her that she could stay, that he’d make sure that she had something to do. But he also knew that for every reason that Henry gave her, there were hundreds more that were more cruel than the ones he’d mentioned.

  “You don’t have to make the decision now, Peaches, but you will need to let me know what you’re going to do. I don’t have a problem with you staying. I think that you’re smart enough to know to keep to the rules. But you can’t be with your brother. Not until he’s older and able to make those decisions on his own. He needs to want you there. And I will tell you, if you become a nuisance to him, he won’t want you there at all.”

  “It’s not fair.” The voice that came out of Peaches’ mouth was evil sounding, like she was possessed or something. But when Henry stood up, she dropped to her belly and cried again. “He gets a life and I had nothing. I just wanted to watch him. To see someone having fun. I want to have fun like a little girl.”

  Henry told him that they were getting to the root of the issue now when Peaches stood up. Easton knew in that moment that he would have messed up had he not called in Henry. He would have allowed her to stay, and Easton thought that Peaches would have hurt her brother. He asked Henry about it.

  “No, not hurt him—it would never have gotten that far. But she would have frightened him had she been given the chance.” Easton asked him if he’d seen it before. “Yes. Siblings are the worst at it. Young ones, as Peaches is, would not understand why one of them lived and the other did not. It would have turned into a haunting for Alex, and he would have been stunted mentally because of her. Now that she understands that I know too, she’ll move on without any trouble. To be honest with you, Easton, I’m surprised that it hasn’t happened before now. She’s had plenty of time to do a great many things to him. But, and this is what saved him, she loves him very much. It’s just that she’s confused.”

  Peaches stood then and looked beaten. “I would have hurt him, huh?” Henry told her that he would have sent her away before then. “Then I couldn’t have ever seen him, could I?”

  “No, you would have been barred from this plane, never to see anyone you knew in either life again.” She nodded. “Are you ready to go with your momma, honey? You know that she misses you.”

  “Yes. I want to tell Alex goodbye. I won’t wake him.” She disappeared, and Easton worried for a few seconds until she returned. “I love him, Uncle Easton. So very much. You’ll tell him about me? Tell him that I didn’t ever hurt him?”

  “I will, baby. I promise you that he’ll know what a wonderful and amazing sister you would have been to him.” She nodded and looked at Henry. “Are you going to go?”

  “I am. I love you, Uncle Easton. Take care of Uncle Wayne for me too.”
He nodded, his lips quivering, he was so upset that it had come to this. “I’ll be all right. Momma and I will be together, and that will be wonderful.”

  Then when she simply faded away, Easton felt broken. Like someone had knocked all the love he’d ever had in him out so that it could go with his niece. Crying on Henry’s shoulder, Easton had never felt so grateful for someone to hold him than he did in that moment. His sister and niece were at peace finally.

  ~*~

  “Lyle, pull your head out of your ass before I have to do it for you.” Lyle looked for his mom, knowing that she would do just what she said she’d do. Or she’d at least give it her best shot at making him hurt. “Where is the car? Is it all right?”

  He was holding onto the phone, he realized. Lyle was trying to get his head on right when he realized that he’d had an accident. That he’d called his mom to have her come and get him before the police arrived. Why? He had no idea, but calling her seemed to be important on so many levels that he couldn’t remember right now.

  “I’m hurt.” She told him tough shit, that the car had better not be ruined. “I think it’s trashed. I don’t know what happened.”

  She was still screaming when someone put their head into where he was lying. The car was upside down, the person told him, and there was glass everywhere. Lyle handed him the phone when he asked for it. Then the man was talking to his mom.

  “Yes, ma’am, he’s been in a bad one. It looks like someone plowed him in the side and skipped.” Mom must have asked what that meant, because he heard the stranger telling her that it meant. “It means, ma’am, that the person that was in the accident with him is gone. We don’t know where he or she is, but we know that there is a body or a person missing from the scene.”

  The sirens were going off, and then there were men all around where he was. It wasn’t like he knew any of them, but he could see plenty of boots right outside his window. The pain that he’d gotten from the accident was starting to seep into his body then, and Lyle started crying.

  “We’re working on getting you out, young man.” He might have thanked him, but all he felt was pain. All over his body.

  There were flashes of lights that he could remember off and on. A man telling him that they were working on it over and over. There was a doctor at some point telling him to hang on, and then a loud motor roared to life.

  Lyle woke himself up screaming in pain. They were pulling him apart, it felt like, dragging him from his car to the street. It was raining—his face was wet with something at least. Then darkness took him again.

  There were flashes of others there with him. He could have sworn that he saw his great grandpa, but that couldn’t have been right. He’d been dead a long time now. Lyle heard voices, one of them sounding like his mom. Then his grandma.

  Words too quick to capture seemed to race around in his head. By the time he’d realize what the word meant, the rest that went with it was gone too. Surgery was mentioned. Stitches and broken something. Lyle was moved again. Lights over his head seemed to blink on and off until he had to close his eyes from it.

  Then he saw his great grandda again. “Hello Lyle. You’re in a pickle, you are.” Lyle tried to ask him where he was—the room was dark with nothingness. “You’ve been so close to joining me a couple of times that I thought for sure you’d be sitting next to me watching your funeral. You’re a real fuck up, aren’t you, boy?”

  “I am not.” But he was. He knew that he had been a fuck up since he’d been smaller. “Great Grandpa, where am I? I can’t see anyone but you. You’re dead.”

  “Dead as that woman that didn’t make it either.” He said there hadn’t been a woman anywhere. “Sure there was. She was right there in the seat next to you when you crashed. Should have been paying attention, Lyle. You’re going to be in deep shit for this one. Unless you can remember to tell them that you weren’t driving.”

  “I wasn’t driving.” Great Grandpa said that he knew that. But he had to remember to tell them who was with him. “I don’t remember anyone, Great Grandpa. How will I tell them if I don’t remember?”

  “You will. It’ll come to you. If you make it, that is.” Lyle asked him if he was going to die. “Yes. You’re pretty badly beaten up, and you broke a lot of bones in your body. It’ll be a miracle if you pull through. I heard them doctors saying that.”

  “I don’t want to die.” Great Grandpa asked him if he thought he was a good enough person to be allowed to live. He really thought about it. His first answer was going to be yes, he was. But Lyle knew that he was far from being worthy of living. “I don’t want to die, Great Grandpa, but I know that I’m not worth spit living either.”

  “You remember that all the time and you might just make it.” Lyle asked him what he had to do. “You can start by turning your life around. You can do it, too. You’ve only done some petty shit that will get you into a little trouble, but you’re headed for the big times. And that momma and grand mammy of yours, they’re going to drag you right down with them.”

  “They want to kill off Uncle Oliver.” Great Grandda seemed to know that too, and didn’t say much. “I was helping them. I hired some people to have him killed. But it didn’t work. He’s still alive.”

  “He is. A good man, that grandson of mine. Now you? You should have been nothing more than a stain on your momma’s sheets. But you’re here now, and there is nothing we can do about that. Except to allow you to die right there on the operating table.” He didn’t want to, but thought that it was no less than he deserved. “You want to make things right with yourself and live to tell about what you’ve been up to?”

  “I do. I really do. I don’t want to...I could have died, and no one would have given a rat’s ass about it.” Great Grandpa said that he wouldn’t have either, had he not been killed off by Honey. “Grandma killed you? Why?”

  “She thought for sure that she was getting something that didn’t belong to her. Those jewels that I gave over to Oliver. Your grandma, she is a terrible person, she is.” Lyle looked where his great grandda was pointing. “Right there, Lyle, that’s your life passing over your eyes. Do you see a thing that makes you proud of yourself? I surely don’t.”

  “I don’t either.” He knew that he had a decision to make, and he had to make it soon. “I want to go back and help Uncle Oliver. I want him to teach me to be a better man. I want him to see me as a better nephew.”

  Lyle felt himself falling. And when he landed he knew that he was going to be as dead as his great grandda. Instead, he felt all the air whoosh into his body in that moment as thousands of electrical shocks took his breath away.

  ~*~

  “Mrs. Graham, your son is one very lucky young man. One more minute and I was going to call it. He is lucky that he even made it to my operating table today.” The boy’s mother asked what had happened. “I’m not sure. I’m only the one that put him back together. He’s going to need constant care for some time now, I’m afraid.”

  Jamie Anderson watched the two women. It was small wonder that the kid had been in an accident like he was. And drunk to boot. Lyle couldn’t have been much more than sixteen or seventeen years old. Jamie wouldn’t doubt that one or both of them had given him the booze.

  “They said that he was driving too quickly. Is that what the little shit was doing?” If she thought to shock him by what she said, Jamie had heard and seen worse. But these two, they were the reason that his job was so difficult. He pretended that it didn’t bother him at all. “That’s my car he was driving. I’m not happy that it was totaled. Nor am I going to be any happier if he has to be taken care of and waited on hand and foot. Can we put him in a nursing home or something?”

  “He’s going to be in here for at least a month.” Honey Moody, the boy’s grandmother, asked him how much that was going to cost. “I would think that you’d have to talk to billing for that. As I said, I’m the one that
put him back together. Do you have any questions about his injuries or anything that I can answer?”

  “No. You don’t seem to know shit, so we’ll just wait here for someone that might have some information for us.”

  Walking away, Jamie thought about the boy and his last name. He knew that his last name was Graham, but he was almost positive that he knew who else the kid was related to. It occurred to him that he might be related to Oliver Moody. There weren’t that many people with that name around here.

  Pulling out his cell phone, he made half a dozen calls as he worked in the recovery room. Lyle was there, as well as the three other people that had been in the accident in in the other car. Jamie also needed to tell the police that Lyle had been wearing his seat belt, and had not been driving. The seatbelt cut into him in the wrong direction for anyone to have thought that he was the one that caused the accident.

  “Moody and Son, may I help you? This is Grace Lane.” Jamie explained who he was and who he’d just worked on. “You said that the boy is Lyle Graham? Do you know if his mother has been notified yet?”

  “She has. As well as the boy’s grandmother. But I was wondering if there is any possible way that Oliver Moody is his uncle or something.” She put him on hold. Jamie had to laugh; Grace was very calm about things. A male’s voice came back on the line barking that his name was Oliver Moody. “Mr. Moody, I’ve just operated on Lyle Graham. Is he related to you?”

  “He’s my nephew. My sister’s son. What’s happened?” Jamie told him everything that he’d done to Lyle, and then mentioned that he’d need constant care once he was released. Things that he had thought that his mother, Sunshine, would have wanted to know. “Can I see him? I’d very much like to be there when his mother and grandmother are not there.”