by Sheryl Lynn
He looked at the quarter as if he wanted to give it a kiss before he slipped it back into the wallet.
Desi swallowed the lump in her throat.
“It’s not something I talk about. Nobody knows that story. Buck zeroed in on it.”
“He did a reading on you?”
“It wasn’t a reading like I’ve ever seen. I refused to give him any clues. I don’t think I said a word. All of a sudden he got this funny look on his face and he was looking at something none of us could see. Then he said a guy was with me and he wanted me to look in my wallet. He wanted to make sure I still had my lucky 1955 quarter.”
Desi swallowed against the pesky lump again. “Dave passed away?”
“He was a Marine. He died in Afghanistan. If Buck had collected a dossier on me, he would have known that. He might have somehow figured out Dave and I were close. No way in hell could he know about my quarter. It’s all on video, Desi. Buck is for real.”
Dallas’s tale killed the indignant fire in her belly. All the certainty she’d felt before she knocked on Dallas’s door now whimpered away.
“Now are you going to tell me what happened to your face?” He opened the fridge again and brought out a bag of ground coffee.
She touched the bandage Buck had applied with such tender care. Her heart ached. “Cat bite.”
He busied himself making coffee. “If you wanted to bitch about Buck you could have done that on the phone. What’s really going on?”
“My house is haunted.”
He stilled, watching her without turning his head.
She drew a deep breath. “My house is haunted. I have a ghost and I want it gone.”
Dallas snorted a laugh. “Now who’s scamming who?”
“I am not kidding.” She hooked her fingers in the collar of the turtleneck sweater and tugged, exposing the bruises made by phantom fingers. “It tried to kill me. I need your help.”
Chapter Eight
Desi found herself in a position she never, in a million years, thought she’d be: The subject of a Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Team investigation.
Dallas and Ringo blanketed her town house with infrared cameras, night-vision digital cameras and digital audio recorders. They checked and rechecked electromagnetic fields with the EMF meters and K2 meters. They looked for cold spots with digital thermometers that could detect temperature changes as small as a hundredth of a degree. Dallas even set up his new thermal camera so it focused on Desi’s bed.
While the men handled the technical side, Desi sat in Pippin’s downtown office. Desi recalled every possible indicator of paranormal activity in her house. Pippin documented every word. The more Desi remembered, the more the truth came clear. When she had accused Buck of causing the paranormal activity, it was because she’d been shaken by the thermal video of the reading. The more she talked, the more she realized there was a definite connection.
The ghost in her house did not like Buck Walker.
Pippin put down her pen and shook a cramp from her hand. She’d filled four pages.
“I talked to Buck,” Pippin said.
Desi looked away. What Buck had done was sneaky and underhanded. If he wanted to know about her past, he could have asked.
“He told me what happened,” Pippin continued, her voice low and melodious. Her therapist tone, designed to soothe. “He told me everything.”
“He’s a con artist, Pip. Did he tell you he dug up information about me? I don’t know how he did what he did with the thermal camera, but researching a victim is the oldest trick in the book.”
“He didn’t dig up info about you.”
“My parents, my grandmother. Same thing.”
Pippin shook her head. “You have a guardian spirit. Buck wanted to know who she is.”
Desi pondered whether to laugh, yell or storm out. Or give in to the yearnings of her aching heart.
“I don’t have a guardian spirit. Why would I?” A spot between her shoulder blades turned cold and itchy. She refused to turn around to see if anyone was there.
“You’ll have to talk to Buck about that.” Pippin leaned forward and patted Desi’s knee. “He cares about you, honey. A lot. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
“I’m not hurt. I’m mad!”
“All I’m saying is, talk to him. Let him explain before you write him off.”
“DID YOU TALK to Buck?” Dallas asked. He and Ringo had wrapped up the investigation and cleared out the equipment. Since neither man reported any experiences, Desi suspected they weren’t going to find anything after reviewing the video and audio.
With her arms crossed Desi looked around her living room and kitchen. It looked the same, but it didn’t feel the same. It had been invaded. Her mouth soured and her legs quivered with the urge to beat it out of there.
“I have nothing to say to him,” she said.
“He told me why—”
She held up a hand to stop him. “I don’t have a guardian spirit.”
“Huh. You are close-minded.”
“I am not!” She clasped her throat. This morning the bruises had been purplish-black surrounded by ugly green and yellow. Common sense said if a ghost could strangle her, then it was possible for her to have a guardian spirit. Still, the hurt and anger lingered. Buck should have asked her what he wanted to know instead of snooping around about her losses.
“Whatever.” Dallas pulled on his coat. “I’ll let you know if we find anything.”
THE DOORBELL STARTLED Desi. Everything startled her these days. She had to work, so she spent her days at home, but when the sun lowered over the mountains and the gloom settled, nervousness got the better of her. She spent nights at a nearby motel, where she slept fitfully with a light and the television on.
She wanted her house back.
Buck Walker stood on her front porch. He held a bouquet of daisies like a shield. She drank in the sight of his broad shoulders, dark hair shining in the sun and warm, brown eyes filled with heart-melting hopefulness. Her insides lightened and her knees went weak.
He eased the flowers toward her. “Peace?”
“What do you want?”
“Five minutes.” His smile touched her soul. “Please?”
She unlocked the storm door and let him in.
She snubbed the flowers and he set them on the breakfast counter, along with a pink box wrapped with a gold cord. “What’s that?”
He looked good in a University of Colorado sweatshirt and jeans. Too good. His masculinity, his sheer sexiness messed with her head.
“Macaroons,” he said.
She struggled to contain her surprise. There was no way in hell he could know macaroons were her favorite sweet treat. Unless he’d talked to Gwen. Why not? It seemed he’d talked to everybody else she knew. He was an annoyingly persistent man. She hated feeling flattered.
“I talked to Dallas,” he said. “If you want me to quit the team I will.”
She fiddled with a thumbnail. Her nails were a mess from chewing on them. She was a mess in general. “Just tell me the truth, okay? Just tell me why.”
A squeaky meow greeted Buck. Spike did a slinky rub around the man’s legs, begging to be picked up. Buck did so. “Hey, big guy. You’re quite the hero.”
Desi pulled a face. Spike still hadn’t forgiven her. With her piling on the insults by leaving him alone in the house at night, he’d been giving her the cold shoulder.
“How’s your chin? It looks better.”
“No infection. So? What do you have to say?”
He put the cat down then held out his hands, palms up, in surrender. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have checked out your past. I apologize.”
“So why did you?”
He rubbed the back of his head and slid his hand over his neck. He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “You have a spirit. A lady. I thought it might be your mother. She doesn’t look like the newspaper photo of your mom, though. This spirit is older and has light hair. She we
ars a lot of jewelry. She reminds me of Gwen.”
Desi caught the edge of the breakfast counter. A vivid memory filled her. Her grandmother laughing while Desi and Gwen raided her jewelry boxes. Gwen piled on the jewels until she sparkled from head to toe while Desi made pictures on the floor out of strings of beads and rhinestone brooches.
Desi shook away the memory. All her photographs were neatly arranged in albums and stored in the back of her closet. Buck had never been alone in her bedroom long enough to find any pictures of Grandma. Gwen, however, had dozens of family photographs on display. Had Buck been to Gwen’s apartment? Jealousy sliced through her like a hot, dull knife.
“I should have told you,” Buck said. “She’s your guardian spirit. She’s been communicating with me.”
Desi refused to look over her shoulder to check if her grandmother was standing in the living room. “Did you talk to Gwen? Go to her apartment? Did she show you pictures of Grandma?”
He blinked, openly puzzled. She caught her lower lip in her teeth.
“No,” he said. “I got the impression you don’t want me talking to Gwen about the paranormal.”
She didn’t want him talking to Gwen, period. Her sister was too attractive.
At the silent confession. Desi’s face grew hot. She was turning into a jealous shrew over a man she didn’t even know she could trust!
“The spirit is beautiful,” Buck started to explain. “Classy. Sense of humor, too.”
Which described Grandma perfectly. Feeling stupid, she asked, “Is she here now?”
“No. She popped in on me this morning. She’s worried about you.” He grinned, sheepishly boyish. “I thought about wearing my Kevlar vest. I bought flowers instead.”
“You’re scared of me?”
“Terrified.” His smile melted her anger and hurt.
A thread of resentment lingered over Buck getting to talk to her grandmother while Desi hadn’t even realized Grandma was hanging around. Feeling grief, she picked up the bouquet of daisies and held them to her nose. They smelled of greenery and springtime, reminding her of the special milled soap Grandma had used. Grandma had died in her sleep. A brain aneurysm, unnoticed, undiagnosed and ultimately deadly, all the more shocking because Grandma had been exceptionally healthy and fit.
“You can call her,” Buck said. “She’ll probably come if you do.”
No. Losing Grandma had been devastating. Only taking care of Gwen, for whom Grandma’s death had been a double whammy, had kept Desi from falling apart. Gwen’s fiancé had died barely three months before Grandma did. Gwen had been such a wreck Desi had handled everything from the funeral to cleaning out Grandma’s house to probating the estate. She couldn’t bear to feel such awful grief again.
“I—I don’t want…I need to think about this.”
“Are you still mad at me?” He shifted his weight. Anxiety darkened his eyes. Her answer mattered to him.
She mattered to him.
“You…” She fiddled with the flowers. “You hurt my feelings.”
“I know. What can I do to make it up to you?” His smile made her want to sigh. “I’m not above groveling.”
Now there was an interesting image. Rather than Buck on his knees, his hands clasped in supplication, she preferred him on his knees while kissing her senseless. Him naked while kissing her senseless. Embarrassment pinged her. Since when she did she obsess about seeing a naked man? She shoved her face in the flowers to hide her blush.
“I can take you to dinner. Anyplace you want.”
Like his place? So she could lick honey off his naked belly?
She blurted, “Can you read minds?”
“No.”
She had to look away to keep from laughing. “Dinner would be nice.”
“Early dinner? Six?”
Dessert later. Naked dessert.
“Sounds good.”
He raked his fingers through his hair while he nodded. “Do you like Thai? There’s a place on Academy with killer green curry. Spicy.”
“I like spicy.” One more minute and she was going to ask him to get naked. “Six it is. But right now I have to get some work done. I’m glad you came over.” She lowered her eyes. “I don’t like being mad at you.”
“Can’t say I care for it myself.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “So we’re good?”
“Yes.”
“All right. See you at six.” He looked reluctant to leave and she eased him toward the door. They should have at least one date before she asked him to get naked.
After she closed the door behind him, she fanned her face.
Almost as nice as the sudden case of hot pants was the safety she’d felt with Buck. Maybe her repeated commands to the ghost to get out of her house had worked. She moved cautiously to the middle of the living room and stood listening. The only things she heard were kids laughing outside and the hum of the computer fan.
Crinkling cellophane made her jump. Spike crouched on the breakfast bar, his face buried in the daisies. The sheer normalcy made her laugh out loud.
Maybe she’d sleep here tonight.
Maybe she wouldn’t sleep alone.
THE DOORBELL RANG and Desi pulled on a robe. Didn’t it just figure? The one time she was running late her date had to be punctual to a fault. She opened the door. Buck arched a brow at the sight of her terry-cloth robe.
“Am I early?” he asked.
It figured, too, that he looked incredible. Black jeans, black boots, and a supple black leather jacket over a cream-colored crewneck sweater. Right on time and gorgeous. Nervousness fluttered in her belly. She usually didn’t care what men thought of her since she was so busy ferreting out their flaws. But Buck Walker was perfect. What if he nitpicked at her?
“I need five minutes.” She invited him in. “I promise. Five minutes.”
She hurried upstairs. She’d already showered, fixed her hair and applied makeup with plenty of time to spare. She’d even managed to cover the bruises on her face. With a bit of extra glam on her eyes, she doubted anyone would notice the scabs on her chin. She’d pulled on her best black slacks, but then the clash of the sweaters had begun. She had tried on at least half a dozen sweaters, and none looked right. She’d settled on a brown turtleneck and was in the midst of figuring out how to pull it on without wrecking her makeup when Buck arrived. Now she deemed the brown too dowdy.
She hung her robe on a hook. Think. Think!
Desi closed her eyes. If she weren’t so flustered, she’d laugh at how ridiculous she acted. It was only a date. She was a grown woman, not a sixteen-year-old. She’d been on plenty of dates and this one was no different. She had a turquoise-colored, cowl-necked sweater in soft chenille that would cover the scabby scratches on her upper chest. And it wouldn’t wreck her makeup when she pulled it over her head.
She opened the closet door. It looked wrong, but it took her confused mind a few seconds to figure out what exactly was wrong. She frowned at the bar. Instead of a row of skirts, sweaters, slacks, blouses and dresses, she saw naked clothes hangers lined up like soldiers. Slowly she lowered her eyes to the pile of clothing on the closet floor.
HATRED AND JEALOUSY struck Buck like a blast of super-chilled air. He staggered back and caught himself on the kitchen counter. At his feet Spike, who’d been rubbing his jeans and meowing to be picked up, puffed up, flattened his ears and hissed.
A shadow figure blocked the light from the sliding glass door. Featureless, hulking, it absorbed light, a man-shaped black hole eating light and energy.
Buck’s throat felt frozen. His muscles quivered and ice filled his torso. His feet were blocks of cement. Hatred pulsed from the Dark Presence. It buried him, swallowed him as sure and inexorable as quicksand.
Spike leaped onto the counter. Ears flat, eyes black, and every hair on his big body standing straight up, he hissed and spit. He let loose a rising mwaroah that any man or beast would recognize as I will kill you!
The shadow swallowed itself a
nd disappeared.
Desi screamed, “Buck!”
He raced for the stairs, jumped over the three steps leading to a small landing, and took the remaining stairs three at a time.
Right before the top he struck an invisible wall that knocked him back. He caught the railing in one hand as his boots slipped on the carpeted stair. To save himself he flung himself forward, striking his knee on the stair. He kept his hold on the railing, wrenching his shoulder but stopping a fall.
“Buck! Oh my God! Are you hurt?” Desi grasped his arm. “What happened? Are you okay?”
His fury matched that of the Dark Presence’s. No stupid ghost was going to push him around. He untangled his feet and rose. Desi, her eyes round and scared, seemed unaware that she wore only a bra and slacks. The bra was plum-colored and silky, uplifting luscious cleavage.
He had enough wits about him to know if he called attention to it she’d put a shirt on. That would be that.
He choked back the urge to tell her he’d been ambushed on the stairs. She was upset enough. He’d tell her later. “I’m okay,” he said. “I heard you scream.”
“It’s back! That obnoxious son of a bitch is back!” She grabbed his hand, hauling him up the stairs behind her.
She pointed a shaking finger at the bedroom closet. “Look what he did. My clothes. He knocked everything to the floor.”
He rubbed his chin, worried and at a loss. This was too much like the other time he’d acknowledged a Dark Presence. That one had been powerful, too, almost destroying him. Spirits drew energy from natural sources in order to manifest or to manipulate objects. They absorbed energy, too, from human emotions. Fear and panic, grief and loss, even great joy, could give spirits enough juice to make themselves known. There was a lot more power here than there had been in the Moore house.
