As she watched Vanessa cross the lawn to her car, Corrie shivered. And it had nothing to do with the thick, humid air that pressed against her.
Maybe later she'd pop some microwave popcorn and tune in the all-movie channel. But for now, she turned, threw the heavy deadbolt, and went back to work in the office.
She'd taken a whole day off and gotten even further behind. Now with this found free time, there was no excuse for not getting caught up.
****
Lightning flashed and sheets of rain pelted the windshield causing the over-worked wipers to do little more than push the water uselessly back and forth. A gust of wind whipped against the Mustang, causing it to swerve out of his lane. Ben fought to keep it on the road, cursing as his tires found no purchase on the sheet of water covering the asphalt, and he fishtailed again.
Considering the weather outside, any man in his right mind would be at home, safe and dry with a good book or, at least, a stack of recent movies. But he'd been thinking about Corrie all day. Even before the weather had turned so bad so quickly. He had stared at the glowering clouds and had fought the urge to go to her until the weather bureau had issued the storm warnings. The tropical depression had stalled over the warm waters just offshore and had quickly intensified to full tropical storm strength before it started to move again.
With Tropical Storm Alois bearing down on Mobile, he had decided to go to Corrie. Now, it wasn't too far away from reaching hurricane status. Without thought to logic or reason, he had locked his house, gassed up the car, and headed for Bayou La Batre.
Nothing could have kept him away. All he could think about was that Corrie was there on the coast.
For all he knew — alone.
The rain had started with a drizzle, but by the time he'd reached I-10, the wind had picked up and the rain had come down in earnest. Now, it had become a deluge of Biblical proportions. He could do nothing but forge through it.
He wrestled the bucking car back onto the highway and peered cautiously into the driving rain. The trip to Bayou La Batre usually took under an hour, but considering the darkness that now pressed down on him from above the thick clouds, he'd been on the road much longer than that. He glanced at his wrist and tried to read the luminous dial on his watch, but it was too dark and the numbers too small to register in a quick glance.
And he had to keep his eyes on the road.
He reached to turn up the radio, but all he could hear was static over the cacophony outside. The rain drummed against the roof, thunder rolled, and his wipers beat like maniacal metronomes. And none of that was as loud as his beating heart.
Anyone in his right mind would have pulled off the road.
Ben drove on.
The rain let up just long enough for him to see the I-90 exit looming ahead. Grateful for any reprieve, Ben steered his car closer to Bayou La Batre.
And Cory.
Corrie. If Ben hadn't been so preoccupied with the business of navigating through the storm, he might have thought harder about the voice in his head, but he'd gotten used to the intrusions, and for now he had enough to think about. Visibility had improved a little; the road was virtually free of other traffic, since most cars were heading the other way, and he still had a long way to go.
He pressed the accelerator and surged ahead, speeding into the dark, praying that he'd get to Corrie in time.
So little time.
The light rain stayed with him long enough to take him to the turn off onto County Road 16. But as he rolled onto the lesser road, the rain returned with vengeance.
"Come on baby, you can do it," Ben urged as the car seemed to falter in the face of the sheeting rain. As he peered ahead through torrents, he could barely make out the shapes of the huge live oak trees that whipped about like saplings in the wind. A sodden gray shroud of Spanish moss, detached by the wind, flew against the windshield, tangling in the wipers before it broke away. He clutched at the steering wheel so tightly that he could barely feel his fingers. But nothing short of death would have made him stop.
And at the rate he was going, it would.
Ben felt electricity charge the air and his hair stood on end. Lighting struck something nearby, and Ben winced as sparks cascaded from a transformer box high on a utility pole that swayed like a bamboo fishing pole in the gale. As grateful as he was for the brief reprieve from the darkness relieved only by the wavering light of his high beams, the close call unnerved him.
The last time he had felt anything so powerful so close, the electricity had gone off at Venable House Inn. A chill raced through him. He shuddered as he remembered what had happened then.
To make matters worse, he'd just remembered the day's date.
The third of June.
And here he was heading for Venable House Inn in an electrical storm.
****
Cory Venable Jordan paced the gallery, frantic in the face of the storm. She'd never been afraid of them at all in life, but in death they — this one at least — terrified her. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't experienced that many storms since her — death. She still hadn't gotten used to that idea, and she shuddered.
Wondering why she hadn't been around to experience many storms occupied her for a few minutes, but since no answer was forthcoming, she soon resumed her restless watch. She didn't know what she would do if Ben didn't bring Ham back to her. Today.
Why today was so important, she didn't know. Nothing had changed in the one hundred years or so that she'd been walking this house as an unseen shade.
Except the people.
How she heard the noise outside over the roar of the storm, she didn't know, but Cory hurried downstairs to the window. A vague shape materialized out of the wall of rain and stepped up to the door and banged.
Cory shrank back as the shadow beat on the hard wood and proved he was more than a figment of her worried imagination. He pounded with such force that the door moved. But, it didn't give.
"Corrie, it's me, Ben. Let me in."
Cory watched as the door moved with the force of Ben's pounding, but it was locked, the dead bolt firmly in place. Corrie probably couldn't hear him over the incessant din, so Cory would have to do something.
She glanced toward the stairs that had taken the other Corrie up to do another of her hourly checks of the upper floor. She hadn't been there that long, but there was no way that Cory would be able to inform her of their visitor without going up and possibly into… that room.
All she knew was that she had to let them in. Ben and Ham. She didn't know why, but somehow she knew that once they were in, everything would be all right.
But somebody still had to open that door.
She had tried to amuse herself over the past few weeks perfecting the trick of levitation that Ham had shown her, and she'd gotten fairly proficient at it. She never left anything displaced for Corrie and the guests to see, but it had been something to occupy her time. Maybe she could open it. But then, moving tea cups back and forth was not the same thing as opening a solid and heavy locked door.
The fury of the storm seemed to increase, and Ben's relentless pounding only accelerated. Cory had to do something. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples and thought with all her might. She focused on moving the solid bar of the deadbolt over from its locked position to a state of open welcome. She concentrated so hard that she trembled.
But nothing happened.
"Corrie, open up. Please!"
She opened her eyes. The door was closed as firmly as ever, the bar stubbornly in place. She tried again.
All she knew was that she couldn't give up.
And just when she thought she could go on no more, the door flew open with an explosion of wind and rain and Ben lurched in.
Ben staggered into the room shaking water and shredded leaves from his drenched yellow rain slicker. He shoved the door shut, struggling against the force of the wind, snapped the dead bolt into place, and looked around. For Corrie, no doubt. He shrugged out o
f the slicker, draped it over the back of a chair, then sank wearily onto the love seat in the parlor.
"No!" Cory screamed, loud enough to compete with the storm as Ham materialized before her.
He turned to Cory. "What is it? They're safe inside now."
Cory turned cold, if that were actually possible in her present condition. "We were safe inside when… lightning… But, we weren't. You have to stop her. She can't be upstairs. She can't go to that room alone."
Cory darted away, becoming a shadow on the stairs. "Corrie is upstairs. You have to rouse Ben. We have to stop her."
Everything depended on it.
****
In spite of his exhaustion, Ben pushed himself up from the love seat. He suddenly felt compelled to rush upstairs to find Corrie. It was almost as if he were a puppet.
He tried to fight the compulsion but his tired arms and legs had resisted him and responded as if they were being manipulated by someone else. He fought so hard against the force that he felt as if he were moving through air as thick as molasses.
Then he realized that Ham must be guiding him.
And that he must have a very good reason.
Once Ben reached that conclusion, he turned loose and let Ham lead him on.
Now, no longer straining against the ghost, Ben dashed up the long flight of stairs. He stood a moment at the top, wondering as he fought for breath, which way Corrie had gone.
He heard a command rather than thought to go to the Honeymoon Suite as if someone had ordered him.
Go! Hurry!
Without thinking, Ben turned to see who had spoken.
No one was there.
Then he heard the crash of breaking glass.
Ben rushed into the room and stopped short. For in front of him were… two Corries.
Cory Venable Jordan stood in the center of the room wringing her hands, abject terror etched on her translucent face. Corrie Wallace struggled with the broken French doors, fighting with streaming shrouds of drapery as she tried to secure the latch to keep at least some of the raging wind and drenching rain outside.
"I couldn't stop her, Ham. I couldn't make myself go that close to the door," Cory mouthed.
Ben felt more than heard the words over the din of the storm.
"You have to join with her, Cory," the voice inside his head called frantically. "Or all will be for nothing."
"I can't," Cory wailed, wringing her hands, her face a picture of agony.
"You must or all will be for naught. If you do not, we will be trapped here for all eternity."
Ham's words must have convinced her, for in spite of her apparent terror, Cory merged into the struggling form of the woman Ben loved.
And then there was one.
Ben looked around for Ham then realized that he would not be able to see him. For he was Ham, and Ham was he.
"That's right," a voice in Ben's head reassured him. "I have joined with you to help you save her."
Just then, Ben felt the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end as the next surge of lightning gathered and prepared to strike. With sudden clarity, he saw what Ham must have seen on that fateful night so long ago: Cory standing on the balcony, her face in the wind, her fiery hair streaming around her, the forces of the heavens coalescing to form one fatal, destructive bolt.
The sky ripped open with a brilliance he'd never experienced before.
Ben lunged toward the open window.
And Corrie.
Chapter Fifteen
Darkness closed in on her, pressing down until Corrie could barely breathe. She gasped, desperately fighting for air as she struggled against the weight that held her down.
Her mind began to clear, and Corrie realized that it wasn't a weight pushing down on her, but a man. Ben.
"Ham?" Corrie shook her head slowly. Why had she said that? In the next flicker of lightning, already retreating into the distance, she could see the dim outline of Ben's face so close to hers. Why hadn't he moved?
Frantically, she struggled to get out from beneath him. She had to find out why he wasn't moving. Why he was nothing more than a dead weight. "Dead! No, he can't be," she murmured as she crawled out from under his limp form.
The lights were out, the generator an apparent casualty of the direct lightning strike.
Corrie groped through the dark room until she found the candles and matches stored in the bedside table. Her hands were clumsy, and she dropped one match before she was able to strike the second, shielding it from the wind that roared through the shattered door. She was rewarded with a tiny flash of light and faint sulfur odor as the match caught. Carefully, she held it to the candle and waited an eternity until the wick caught the tiny flame, dimmed, then grew as the fire took hold.
Corrie stood the candle in the old-fashioned hurricane holder and crept back to where Ben still lay. His eyes were closed. That was a good sign, wasn't it? Didn't she remember something about a dead man's vacant stare? She lowered herself to her knees and placed the light to one side, out of the reach of the draft, but near enough to provide its weak light.
As her eyes adjusted to the meager light, she placed two fingers against his neck, feeling for a pulse. She found it, thready but it was there. Trying to remember anything and everything she'd ever learned about first aid, she rolled him over to his back to make him breathe easier and was greeted with a whoosh of air. Corrie placed a trembling hand on Ben's chest and was relieved to feel it rise and fall as his lungs took in oxygen.
Gratefully, she sat back, closed her eyes, and raised her face upward in a silent prayer.
Corrie had just opened her eyes when she caught the slightest movement in the corner of her sphere of vision. She turned and saw…
Her.
In the dim, almost non-existent light, she saw herself. No, it was the other Cory. Corrie Wallace had never worn a dress as lovely as that. She knew, without thinking, that she was gazing at Cory Venable Jordan, and the lovely, lace confection was her wedding dress.
"What? Why?" Corrie couldn't even manage a coherent question.
"It's all right. Your man will be fine," the quiet figure assured her. She gestured toward Ben.
Ben moaned softly and stirred, and Corrie gasped, bringing her hand too late to her mouth to stifle the sound. Not that it mattered, she supposed absently. As Ben shifted, a ghostly form seemed to rise out of him as if his soul were departing his earthly shell.
"No," Corrie wailed. "You can't leave me just when I've found you."
The Ben figure reached toward her, and though Corrie shrunk back, she could feel its searching fingers, whispery cold as they caressed her cheek. "It isn't Ben, but Hamilton you see. Your Benjamin will wake shortly. I don't know how I know that, but I do." The specter smiled then, and Corrie could see that though the man in life had resembled Ben, she was seeing the man who had stood next to his bride in the wedding portrait downstairs.
"Your Benjamin allowed me to finish a task I started over a hundred years ago. I couldn't save my wife's life, but through Ben, I was able to save you." With those words, Hamilton Jordan smiled and took his place at his bride's side.
They reached for each other, two hands grasping at nothing. For a brief instant, they touched, and a brilliant light seemed to radiate from them. Then in a scene reminiscent of a movie, the two figures elongated and stretched out through the broken door. Once outside, they turned and waved.
Then they were surrounded by a glowing sphere of light that swelled and pulsed as it intensified. In the blink of an eye, with the next gust of wind, they seemed to disperse, and then, they were gone.
Corrie stared for a moment toward the spot where Ham and his bride had been. If they had ever been there.
No, Corrie told herself. She wouldn't question what had just occurred. It had been too beautiful to dismiss. She sighed wistfully.
Though it had always been in her nature to doubt such things, from this moment on, she believed.
****
"What happened?" Ben mumbled to himself, his voice raspy and thick, his mouth feeling as though it were filled with cotton. He blinked in an effort to clear his eyes, but his vision became no clearer. He closed his eyes again, squeezing them tight enough to make him see sparks. He had no idea what was going on, he could barely see, and his head felt as though he'd been whammed with a sledgehammer.
The fog in his brain lifted slowly, and as it did, he heard the sound of footsteps, distant but coming closer. "Corrie?"
The pace increased, and Corrie appeared above him. "Don't try to get up. You've had a shock."
Remembering the storm, the window, and the jolt of lightning that had struck him, Ben thought wryly that that was an understatement of terrific proportions.
Corrie lowered herself to him, and Ben could see the concern on her pale face in the murky light which he'd finally identified as coming from one flickering candle.
"Did the lights go?" he rasped.
Nodding, Corrie explained further. "Even the generator won't hold up to a direct hit by lightning." She touched a gentle finger to his lips as he tried to push himself up and ask more questions. "Hush, don't try to talk." She eased him to a sitting position, supporting him in her arms, his back cushioned against the soft pillow of her breasts. "I don't know whether this will help, but I brought some water and a damp cloth."
Suddenly, Ben realized that his throat felt dry as Death Valley in July. "Water," he mumbled. Immediately, Corrie placed the cool liquid to his parched lips.
As the water did its work soothing his cracked mouth and dry throat, he began to get a better grasp on what had happened. He pushed the glass away. "Are you all right?" He angled his head around to see her.
Corrie smiled down at him, gently, serenely. "I'm fine. Had the wind knocked out of me, and it probably scared me out of ten years of life, but I was more worried about you."
Loath to leave his comfortable position in Corrie's arms, Ben knew what he had to do. "I'm all right. I think." He pushed himself away from her, and to assure himself as much as Corrie, took quiet inventory of his capabilities. Everything seemed to be functioning. He leaned back, breathed a relieved sigh, and felt a tightening down below.
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