by Sheryl Lynn
Snow patrol was a bitch. It meant hours spent guarding downed power lines until the utilities trucks could make it to the scene; untangling the stories of motorists who had ice-skated their vehicles through intersections only to collide with other vehicles doing the same thing. Then there were the disputes between neighbors about snow removal; business break-ins by homeless men hoping to be arrested so they could wait out the storm in the jail; frantic calls by people worried about elderly shut-ins. He’d caught a few catnaps at the station, but mostly he’d just consumed far too much coffee.
Moving on autopilot, he unbuckled his service belt and placed his sidearm, pepper spray and Taser in the gun safe. When he removed his Kevlar vest, his skin seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. His uniform went in a pile to be dealt with later.
He flopped facedown on the couch to rest for a minute.
He dreamed of Desi. She waited for him on a warm beach while he swam through the ocean toward her. He had come a long, long way and she was the prize awaiting him. Every stroke of his arms through the surf made him feel stronger. Every breath filled him with power. She stood on the blinding white sand, her dark hair impossibly long and blowing sinuously in a tropical breeze. She waved at him. “I’m coming,” he yelled. “Wait for me!” Her waving turned frantic and she began to scream. He floated on the now-still waters. A dark shadow passed below him, dark and menacing and immense, gliding like a slow torpedo toward Desi. He tried to yell at her to run, but the sea grabbed at him, filling his mouth and throat with bitter salt, dragging him under, pulling him back…
Buck startled awake, gasping and disoriented.
He struggled to his feet, his muscles protesting. He checked his wristwatch and stared at it in disbelief. Four hours had passed since he walked in the door.
A muffled roar drew him to the window. The apartment complex maintenance guys were in the parking lot, clearing snow with a plow mounted on a lawn tractor. Bared asphalt steamed. The brilliant sun washed color from the world. Snowdrifts, built higher by the passage of snowplows, blocked his view of the street.
Desi. His nerve endings burned with his desire to see her. Talk to her. Hold her. The nightmare had drained from him, but dread remained.
He wandered into the bathroom, stripped, then started the shower. While the water heated, he examined his scruffy face in the mirror. He had a dark bruise on his chin from Desi kicking him, but it was more colorful than painful. What still hurt was the bump on his head. He gingerly touched his head, relieved the swelling had disappeared. Some kind of girl-law, he supposed: the smaller the woman, the bigger the purse.
No matter how busy he’d been during the storm, he couldn’t stop thinking about Desi. He couldn’t stop thinking about her message. All okay here. Name time and place. I love you.
I love you.
He sighed. Like the jackass he was, he’d asked Will to ask her, Really?
Really?
Like a teenager passing notes in algebra class. Like an idiot who didn’t know a good thing when he held it in his hands.
He’d dated plenty of women, but the knowing did him in every time. Knowing their little lies, knowing their games, always knowing how they truly felt. Too much knowing.
The more he knew Desi the more he wanted to know. Her temper, her confidence, her independence, the way she talked so tough, and yet her heart was so tender. Stirrings of arousal made him grin. It didn’t hurt that she was the sexiest woman he’d ever met.
Did he love her?
Did he want to?
He did.
He should have called her right away. It hurt to know she was only a phone call away, but he couldn’t contact her. It hurt knowing she was only a few miles away, but he couldn’t see her face.
“Idiot,” he growled at his reflection. He should have told Will to tell Desi I love you, too.
Mary Hollyhock’s face appeared in the mirror. Startled, he grabbed a washcloth to cover his groin and spun about. Her image disappeared.
“Not funny,” he said. “Do you mind?”
The shower was beginning to steam. He stepped into the tub and closed the curtain as if that could hide his nakedness from a ghost. “We’ll talk when I finish,” he said. He lifted his face to the pulse of hot water, letting it burn off the fatigue. The smile he’d glimpsed on Mary’s lovely face in the mirror reassured him Desi was safe. The dread lifted.
He shampooed his hair. It felt as if a third hand worked its way through his hair and against his scalp. He slapped at the phantom hand. “Ma’am! Please. I can wash myself.” After he rinsed his hair, he hesitated about picking up the soap and washcloth. He did not want Desi’s grandmother—anybody’s grandmother!—washing his ass.
To his relief she left him alone while he finished, then stepped out, dried off and pulled on a pair of shorts. He decided not to shave. He was too hungry.
In the kitchen he checked his cell phone. No missed calls. He wanted to hear Desi’s voice and assure himself that she really was safe, but he didn’t dare. Their connection attracted the Dark Presence, and he could not risk it. He pulled eggs from the fridge.
He glimpsed a flash of rhinestones from the corner of his eye. She was here, but her manifestation was weak. “Are you afraid of drawing him to me?” She materialized enough for him to see her nod. “He can’t enter the cemetery. So we can talk there, right?” She nodded again. He could see the clock on the wall through her filmy image. “Do you know how to get rid of him? What he wants?” Another nod.
The apartment felt empty and he knew he was alone. Still, fear coiled in his belly like a cold, heavy snake. He felt ten years old again, terrified but fascinated by his first encounter with a Dark Presence. He blinked rapidly, trying not to go there, but he remembered its black emptiness and the way it looked at him. It had no eyes, but a stare like tentacles, drawing him in. His arms ached with the memory of powerful, invisible hands making him reach for a box of kitchen matches stinking of sulfur. His shoulders ached with memories of struggling against it only to have it push him, drag him, yank him out the door and across the fields. His mouth moved and his lungs breathed, but another voice sang Make it burn. Make it burn. Tears streamed down his cheeks as corn leaves sliced his skin.
He shook himself and slammed both fists against the counter. Genuine pain rocketed through his arms and broke the memories. He shook his head so hard that his tears struck the kitchen cabinet.
His mouth filled with sour despair.
He snatched up the phone to call Will. This had to end. Somehow, someway, it had to end.
BUCK SPOTTED DESI’S CAR in the cemetery. The bright-red Subaru stood out against fields of snow. He drove slowly along the plowed and dry road wending through the cemetery. Deep snow covered the fields in a lumpy blanket, shrouding headstones and shrubs. Spruce and fir trees were white sentinels, their branches weighted.
He parked behind the Subaru, then sat for a moment, his mind open and searching. He felt certain he’d understood Mary Hollyhock that the Dark Presence had no power here, but the fear snake stirred in his belly.
He got out of the Jeep.
I love you.
What would a man do to be worthy of her love?
Die for her. For her love he’d go the other side and battle Charles Skillihorn ghost to ghost.
Desi stepped out of the car. The sight of her nearly took him to his knees. Her hair flowed like dark water, gleaming beneath the sun. Dark sunglasses shielded her eyes. A forest-green sweater clung to her slender curves.
She looked uncertain as she stood with her hand atop the open car door. “Hi.”
He stood his ground, cursing the twenty feet that separated them. He blinked against the bright snow glittering like diamonds and slipped on his sunglasses. “Crazy how warm it is, eh?”
She nodded. “That’s the nice thing about late-season storms.” She suddenly slammed the car door. “Are we nuts, Buck? Standing in a cemetery talking about the weather?”
She shoved the keys in her
pocket and marched toward him with a fierceness that momentarily stunned him. It turned him on, too. When she grasped his hands with a surprisingly strong grip he swayed with dizziness.
Her throat worked with a hard swallow. He could see her eyes behind the glasses, searching, demanding. “Did you…? What you said. Do you mean it?”
The last message he’d sent through Will via Gwen had been to the point. Cemetery. Today. 2:00. Since she was here he was here and she knew he meant it.
Unless she meant his idiot reply to her “I love you.” Really?
He was so far out of his realm he didn’t know whether to laugh, run like hell or drop to his knees and beg forgiveness for what had to have seemed like a dismissal. He shook his head. Or maybe it was what he didn’t say. After he relayed the message to Will, he knew he should have told Desi he loved her. It was difficult enough to express how he felt without having to do it through emissaries.
“I’m sorry. It was stupid. I didn’t mean to sound like that.”
She dropped her hands. “Oh.”
Her sudden coldness and the hurt in her eyes meant he’d said the wrong thing, the worst thing.
“I’m gonna kill Gwen. That liar,” she muttered. She turned away and shoved her hands in her pockets. “Are we alone?”
Uncertain what Desi’s sister had to do with this, but certain he was in trouble, he said, “Honey, please, come on. Don’t be made at me.”
She turned her head enough to see him. “I’m not mad.”
“Have a heart. This is new to me. I mean, a girl like you. A woman like you! You’re so—”
She spun about. “I’m so what? Mean? Bad-tempered? Snotty? Short?”
Somehow, some way, their trains of thought had diverged and they weren’t talking about the same thing at all. He trod dangerous ground filled with land mines that could blow his heart to pieces. “You’re so incredible,” he said quietly. He pulled off his sunglasses and squinted against the glare.
She slid her sunglasses atop her head and peered suspiciously at his face. “Then it was you? You mean it.”
He nodded. He didn’t trust his stupid mouth. His stupid brain couldn’t come up with anything better than incredible to describe her. He stretched a hand toward her and waited. She placed her delicate hand in his. He drew her close and kissed her. Her lips were cold, hesitant, but they quickly warmed, and her eagerness swept him away from the snow-shrouded graves. Away from fear and confusion. Her sweet lips parted and her tongue was hot silk. He held her closer, aching to take her to that huge bed of hers. He wanted her naked and hot and making those wanton noises that drove him wild. He wanted to show her with his mouth and his hands and his body how incredible and beautiful and lovable she was.
She pushed his shoulder and broke the kiss. Her mouth was red, her eyes dark. She searched his face. “Are we alone?” she whispered.
Blinded by arousal, he blinked in order to focus. His head cleared. He saw no Dark Presence. No grandmother, either. “Yeah.”
“What are we supposed to do?”
All kinds of ideas popped into his head, and none involved appropriate behavior. He shifted his hips, trying to readjust his jeans, and wondered if throwing himself face-first into the snow would help cool his blood. He forced himself to turn her loose.
“We don’t have to go to the grave, do we?” She eyed the snow. They’d parked as closely to the Skillihorn graves as possible but reaching those graves still meant a hike through wet snow over hilly, uneven ground.
“Call your grandmother.”
She hugged herself and shivered. Buck felt the cold then. As bright as the sun was, it was fool’s-gold warmth. Intermittent wind lifted a chill off the snow and sent it coursing around his body.
“Let’s sit in your car, honey. Warm up a bit.”
Once they were inside the Subaru, she turned on the engine so the heater blew over their feet.
“Call her,” Buck said.
Desi loosed a long breath. “Grandma?” Her cheeks reddened and she placed both hands over her mouth. A nervous giggle escaped through her fingers.
Astonished, Buck said, “You still don’t believe.”
“I do! I’ve seen him. Heard him.” She touched her throat. “Felt him. I do believe.”
Buck shook his head. “You’re still trying to explain this away. Still looking for loopholes.”
He sensed her presence before he saw her. Mary Hollyhock appeared in the backseat, as solid as flesh and blood. She wore a soft sweater and cream-colored slacks. A triple row of pearls encircled her neck and big clusters of pearls decorated her ears. A brooch with pearls and rhinestones glittered on the sweater. Her hands were folded primly on her lap. A smirk gave away her ladylike ruse of pretending she hadn’t been pestering him while he showered.
Desi shifted on the seat to follow his gaze. “Why are you smiling?”
“Your grandmother has quite a sense of humor.”
Desi craned her neck, trying to see the floor behind her. “Is she here?”
“Yep. So, ma’am, what do we do?”
He heard it deep within his mind. Heard it in his heart. Forgive.
“Forgive,” he said, and the spirit nodded in reply.
“Forgive what?” Desi asked.
Buck sighed. For all she’d seen, for all she’d felt, she still hadn’t taken that final leap of faith. Still couldn’t accept that there existed a world beyond her senses, a world beyond the reach of science.
“I don’t think Desi believes you’re here.”
Mary laughed silently. On her neat lap appeared a plate of cookies. Buck frowned at them. They looked like the macaroons he’d bought for Desi, but these were speckled with something dark. He caught a whiff of…He sniffed, trying to catch the elusive scent. Chocolate.
“I do believe,” Desi insisted. “I just don’t know what she means!”
“Macaroons with chocolate?” He stared at the cookies. “Chocolate chips?”
Desi fell back against the door, staring at him with wide eyes. She whispered, “What did you say?”
“She’s showing me cookies. Coconut macaroon cookies with chocolate chips in them.” He inhaled deeply, but the scent was gone. “It smelled good for a moment. I—”
Tears filled Desi’s eyes. Her chin quivered and her lips parted.
“Honey? Desi?”
One tear spilled, then another. She wailed and dropped her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook.
Buck reached for her, but she twisted away, as much as the narrow seat and steering wheel allowed. The console frustrated Buck’s efforts to gather her in his arms.
He resorted to patting her back. “Honey, don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”
She lifted her face to him. It was red and wet. “I’m not crying! I never cry!” she protested. Then she resumed sobbing.
Buck looked to Mary for help. She gazed serenely out the window at the snow falling in clumps from evergreen limbs.
This had happened many times before. A spirit would show him something personal and it struck a chord with the disbeliever, loosing a deluge of emotion. Buck hated it. It made him feel mean-spirited, as if he made people cry for the hell of it. The spirits were never any help. They always acted as if this was exactly the reaction they wanted.
“I bet you liked soap operas,” Buck muttered to her.
Mary lifted an elegant eyebrow.
Desi’s sobbing eased and the snuffling began. She got a package of tissues out of the console and blew her nose. Ripped out a fresh tissue and wiped her face. Another tissue, another nose blow. She continued blowing and wiping her face until the tissue pack was empty.
“I’m glad you never cry, honey. That could get messy.”
She shot him a glare through swollen eyes and pulled down the visor to look in the mirror. She groaned.
“Why can’t I see her, Buck?” Her voice was rough and her shoulders hitched. “It’s not fair that you can see her and I can’t. Does she look good? Is she happy?”
“She’s beautiful.”
Mary preened, touching her hair and lifting her chin to show off the elegant length of her neck.
Desi twisted and reached between the seats for her purse. She pulled it onto her lap and began rummaging. “Where is she? Where exactly? What is she doing?”
“She’s sitting in the back seat. Behind you.”
She searched the mirror for a sign of anything behind her. “Is that what this is all about, Grandma? You brought me here because of those damned cookies? You want forgiveness? Fine, you’re forgiven.”
Curious, though not surprised by the roller coaster of her emotions, he looked between Desi and her grandmother. The spirit was beginning to look pale. Sunlight turned her hair into a shimmering corona lacking true form. She was losing power.
“Talk to her, Desi,” he said. “About whatever you need to say. I don’t think she can stay here much longer.”
“Talk about what? Macaroons?” She smiled. It was weak and her eyes were strained. “Grandma made the best macaroons in the whole world.” She spoke into the mirror. “You did. I’ve never had better. They were my special treat. She made them just for me.” She rummaged in the purse and found a fresh pack of tissues. She blew her nose again. “When I got my first acceptance letter for college she made extra-special macaroons.” She twisted on the seat, doing her best to see behind her. “She screwed them up royally with chocolate chips!”
Mary shrugged and showed her palms. Her rhinestone brooch had lost its glitter. Buck could see the door seam and seat belt through her.
Desi slumped. “I pitched a fit.” She covered her eyes with a hand. “Like a two-year-old. I accused her of trying to ruin my great news. Oh God, I was horrid. I acted like a brat.” She dabbed at her eyes. “A horrible, spoiled brat. Selfish and ungrateful and mean! I’m sorry, Grandma! I am so, so sorry. I miss you so much.”
Now the spirit was little more than a shadow.
A gentle voice only Buck could hear said, “Forgive.”
Her power flared, filling the car interior with light. Her face was suddenly young, unlined. Her face belonged to Gwen.
