by Various
“Lucas…”
“Lucas…”
She woke up murmuring his name, her body sated with the sweet, replete ache of sex, aching between her thighs as though she had just been taken in the sweetest way.
But CJ was alone in the bed.
And she didn’t know a Lucas.
“What in the hell…” she muttered shakily. Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she stood up, staring into the mirror at her reflection. She didn’t look any different, 103
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but she sure as hell felt different. Emptier, like she had just realized she had lost something.
Lucas.
Who was he?
With a sigh, she shoved him out of her head as she showered and dressed. CJ had way too much to get done to be worrying about somebody from a dream. On the way out the door, she grabbed her notebook and pen from the dresser, determined to actually get some work done today.
Rounding the corner, her gold-streaked hair caught in a ponytail, CJ came to a halt as she spied the narrow door at the end of the hallway.
She had seen it before, just the previous night, but had been too busy to investigate.
Now, tucking the pen in her breast pocket, she stuck the notebook in her back pocket and crossed the hall. The doorknob was tiny, and the door seemed stuck at first.
Finally she wrestled it open, mentally making a note to have it fixed.
A long narrow set of stairs was revealed. Reaching out, she turned on the light, pleased when it revealed a whitewashed stairwell. Climbing the stairs, she kept her hand on the polished wood of the banister, grinning as she finally cleared the last step and found herself standing a huge, open space.
It didn’t look like the kind of attic she would have expected. It was painted, bright and cheery, with light pouring through the dormer windows. Boxes and trunks were neatly arranged along the walls.
Some had her father’s familiar handwriting on them.
Turning away from them, she went to investigate the older-looking trunks along the eastern corner. Hours later, surrounded by journals, books written back in the eighteen hundreds, cigar boxes, pipes, CJ was leaning up against an emptied trunk, dust streaking her face, her hair falling free from its ponytail.
Setting aside the journal, she got to her knees, moved closer to another trunk and tried to open it. This one didn’t want to open. She fiddled with the lock, sat back on her heels when it didn’t budge and muttered under her breath. Frustrated, she reached out, slammed the top of the trunk with her fist, preparing to clean up her mess.
She’d get a screwdriver and come back up later.
The trunks were full of all sorts of treasures. Journals, books, a trunk full of clothes so old she was afraid to touch them. Kneeling, she carefully stacked up the books and journals, setting one aside to take downstairs.
She rose a good half hour later, stretched her stiff body and turned to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.
And the lid of the last trunk, the one that wouldn’t open, was up.
Chills raced down her arms but she quickly banished the jitters, moving across the room, hugging the journal to her chest. Photographs. It was full of old photographs.
Beneath those lay more leather bound books, journals most likely.
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Leaning over, she started to grasp the top when a piercing pair of eyes caught her attention. She stilled, a gasp dying in her throat as she stared at the sepia-toned photograph on top. It was of a man, a stern-faced man with cold, almost cruel eyes. He didn’t look like somebody CJ would want to know, that was certain.
She knew that the style of that time was not to smile at the camera, which resulted in some rather dull-looking portraits, but this man wasn’t dull.
And she would bet her entire life savings that he was every bit as intimidating in life as he was on paper.
Which was sad.
Because he was one of the most gorgeous creatures she had ever seen in her life.
He had a lean, sculpted face, high cheekbones, a mouth she ached just looking at.
Though his hair was slicked back, with pomade probably, the style couldn’t quite hide the waves. She guessed the color was the sunny blond she had once tried to imitate. She couldn’t discern anything about his eyes, but they were set in a strong-looking face with high cheekbones and an unsmiling mouth. The suit that stretched across his broad shoulders couldn’t quite hide the fact that he was built.
All in all, he was one damn fine-looking man, especially considering he was dead.
The thought filled her with an odd sort of melancholy and she quickly lowered the trunk’s lid, covering the unsmiling, handsome face.
The journal belonged to a Katherine Greene, the daughter of a local pastor back in 1843. She had been sixteen when she had started this one, and CJ was completely enchanted.
Had they all been so guileless back then?
Turning the page, CJ read about the man Katherine was supposed to marry.
He is so handsome. Mama teases me how I blush every time he looks at me. My heart beats so fast, and I felt faint today when he took my hand to help me from the carriage.
We went for a ride today. It was a new carriage, riding so smooth and quiet. Not like Papa’s wagon. And we went by ourselves. Mama and Papa trust him.
Of course, we’ve been engaged since I was just a baby. Our grandpapas fought in the war together, and our papas came to Kentucky together.
I hope Collin Lucas truly does care for me. Collin Lucas, everybody calls him Collin Lucas.
But he’s Lucas, my Lucas. He’s always quiet, always very polite. He is just so sophisticated. And I feel like such a silly child around him. He’s been to London and New York and Paris. Just last year, he brought me a parasol from Paris. I’m almost afraid to use it, it’s so pretty.
He kisses me, in ways I know he isn’t supposed to. I do not tell Mama. He has touched me before, on my breast, my hips, and then he stops and pulls away, laughing and telling me that I drive him to distraction.
That beautiful perfect man, and I can drive him to distraction.
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Fancy that!
A year later there was another entry, on her eighteenth birthday.
Lucas made love to me today.
Oh…it was the sweetest thing. We went to the stream, our place. He laid me down under the oak tree. We went for a picnic, our own party. The ball is tomorrow. Today was ours.
He undressed me, so carefully, so gently—
CJ didn’t even realize she had started to daydream…
The sound of running water filled her ears, sun shining down on her body as a man with sunny hair and loving eyes stripped away the layers of clothes from her body. “It is not fair for you, is it?” he murmured against her ear. “Your birthday, and I am the one opening the present?”
Her petticoats and corset fell away under skilled hands and he lifted her head in his hands, kissing her gently, lovingly, whispering one last time, “Are you certain?” as he wedged his thighs between hers. His mouth, hot and wet, closed over the hard, pebbled crown of her nipple.
Oh, she was certain. They had taken their playing further, but not this far. “Please, Lucas, please,” she pleaded, reaching for him, digging her fingers into the hard, mounded muscles at his shoulders, along his arms as he slid his thick, heavy sex along the wet folds between her thighs.
“Hold still, Katie,” he murmured as he surged forward, driving deep, breaking through her maidenhead, plunging his cock to the core of her womanhood as she screamed, sharp and hard. “Shhh. It will be fine. I know it hurts. But it will pass. You are wet and tight and soooo soft, so sweet.” Stroking his thumb against her clit, he asked, “Does that feel good?”
That gentle touch sent a lightning bolt streaking through her belly, and radiating out through the rest of her body, making the muscles in her cleft tighten down around the thick heavy sh
aft invading her in a sweet, delicious way as she arched into his touch. “Yes. Oh, please, Lucas, I want… I need…”
With a wicked smile, he asked, “What do you want?”
Thrashing her head, she said, “You, damn it. I want you to do something.” She slid her hands around to clutch at his side, opening her eyes and looking up at him.
“Please.” Wriggling her hips, she tried to move around him, but it did little good.
Lucas lowered his head and whispered, “Would you like me to fuck you?”
Her eyes widened. “Ummm, what does that mean?”
He grinned, a flash of white teeth in his tanned face as he pulled out and surged back in. “Darlin’, it is a very, very naughty word for this.” And he repeated it, surging back in, again and again, until she was lifting her hips hungrily to his and panting, her face gleaming and her eyes wide with wonder.
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And then he pressed his hips down against hers, stilling her frantic movements.
“So, my love, my one true love, would you like me to fuck you?”
Katie glared up at him and pouted, “Darn it, why did you stop?”
Sulkily, he said, “Well, you haven’t told me that is what you want me to do.”
With a hoarse yell, she said, “Fuck me, please!”
With a rough laugh, he plunged into her, sinking his cock deep inside, lowering his mouth to her breast, sucking first one nipple deep, then the other, as Katie arched her hips up and took his cock deep, deep within the wet, aching well of her pussy, the burning fire of impending orgasm building inside her body, even though she didn’t recognize it.
With a sobbing cry, she threw her head back and came, clenching down around his cock and coming in slow rhythmic waves as Lucas started to pulse deep inside her, spilling hot washes of seed inside her pussy.
CJ came out the reverie, feeling strangely replete. Like the dream… Opening her eyes, she looked down at the journal. She hadn’t gotten past the page that mentioned Lucas making love to Katherine.
Slowly, she turned the fragile pages.
And there, two pages after, was a small paragraph, where he had teasingly told her about fucking, and how he had done it, and how he had teased her into using that naughty word.
CJ’s vision started to blur.
How had she known?
Oh, man.
She had read ahead without realizing it. That was all.
Simple.
But she wasn’t convinced.
And she also didn’t understand why she was falling for a man who was dead. Or why she was jealous of his lover.
He’d been dead over a century. Both of them.
Ridiculous, especially for a logical, mature woman.
Eyebrows rose when CJ drove her flashy little car into Warren. It was still a small town, once a fairly prosperous one thanks to the coal mining and the tobacco farms. Of course, the tobacco farms were suffering, and coal mining was reliable, easy money. It had turned into an antiques town, and several bed-and-breakfasts were thriving.
Tourism was their main income now, and the townfolk were friendly.
They were also incredibly nosy, even for small-towners.
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“That’s her,” Willa Monroe said, nodding to the long, slim woman with honey blonde hair. “She came into town a few months back and spoke with Dusty about painting that old house. Didn’t so much as blink when he quoted a price.”
“No wonder, look at the car.” The stern-faced woman didn’t so much as express a trace of envy, even though she would have cheerfully shaved her head bald to drive that car, just once. “She was here last week and was just as stuck up as you please.”
The third lady laughed. Clair said, “She got cornered by Marcella Fields practically the minute she got out of the car. What kind of mood would that have left you in?”
“Not a nice one.” Willa’s graying blonde brows rose and she said softly, “I wonder how much she knows about that house.”
Next to nothing, but CJ was ready to remedy that. After being stopped numerous times by the locals with greetings and subtle hints about her life and lifestyle, and some not so subtle, she finally found her way to the library.
The small woman who sat at the desk, thumbing through a well-worn book, looked up the moment CJ entered. Laying the book down, a beaming smile on her face, she said, “Chelsea Jane. How wonderful to see you again. My, what a lovely woman you’ve become.”
It couldn’t possibly be. Not after twenty years. But there she sat, her white hair piled into its simple bun, her glasses perched on her nose and her eyes twinkling like faded blue diamonds.
“Mrs. Graham,” CJ whispered, delighted. She didn’t so much as hesitate when the old woman came around the desk with her arms held open wide.
She still smelled of cinnamon and cookies, CJ thought. But she seemed so tiny. Her head didn’t even reach CJ’s shoulder. She hadn’t thought to see her here. Rosa Graham had been old even twenty years ago.
Guiding CJ through the library, she proudly pointed out the additions, as if she had done each one herself. She displayed the children’s area and the area devoted to local writers and artists. Two writers, three different artists, a singer, a painter, and an old craftsman.
“Maybe we can add you someday,” Mrs. Graham said, pointedly referring to the dream CJ had hesitantly revealed, when she had just been seven years old.
CJ hadn’t told a soul why she was here. But it bubbled up out of her now, as if she could no longer keep it to herself. “I want to write a book. Books, lots of them. That’s why I’m here.”
“Nothing like a haunted house to get the imagination going,” Rosa mused, linking her arm through CJ’s and guiding her through the small sitting area.
Biting her lip, CJ asked, “Is… I mean, why have people always thought it haunted?”
“Because, Chelsea, honey, it is. It’s a sad house. Sad things happened there a long time ago, awful things. And it’s still waiting, for justice, for completion. Why, I’m not 108
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even sure we have anything about it, other than hearsay. The library wasn’t even built until 1923. And my mother and father were in charge then.”
“Yes, I remember. You used to sit in here reading as a child,” CJ said, pausing to study a painting. It was of a tiny, delicate creature with yards of inky black hair and laughing eyes the color of violets. She wore a hoopskirt and one small hand held a fan.
“Who is she?”
“One of my ancestors, Katherine Greene.”
Katherine. Katherine Greene… “I’ve heard that name before.”
White brows arched and rose. “Really? The Greene family is very prominent around here, and has always been, even back when that house was first built. In fact, Katherine was once engaged to the man who owned your house. They were so very in love. I believe she even lived there for a time.”
“Did she marry him?”
“No, no, I don’t believe she did,” Rosa said softly before she turned away.
CJ’s eyebrows rose and the little old lady changed the subject without blinking an eye. “There’s a church picnic coming up in just two weeks. Why don’t you come with me?”
“I’d like that,” CJ said, glancing back to the painting before following Rosa back to the desk.
Once engaged to the man, but didn’t marry him. Yet she lived there?
Later that night she went through all the journals, finding every one that belonged to Katie Greene. Eleven in all, from the time she was seven up until shortly after she turned eighteen. She wanted to read that last one, but started with the earliest one, written in 1834.
Those first few were those of any young child, pouting when she punished, daydreaming about what a grand lady she would become. About a puppy a young Collin Lucas Frost had given her. Collin Lucas.
Lucas… the name brought back that memory of her dream, days earli
er, of a man with sunny blond hair and pale gray eyes.
Collin Lucas Frost.
Coincidence, CJ told herself, swallowing .
Collin’s mama remarried today. I do not like her new husband. He shan’t make her happy.
Or Collin Lucas. He has very cold eyes, and I heard him be harsh to Collin Lucas while the boys were playing. A boy his age should not be running about like a hewligan. I do not know how to spell that, or what a hewligan is. But I do not think it is a nice thing.
His name is Peter Davenport and he is from Georgia. He has funny whiskers that cover his whole face and I think his face would break should he ever smile.
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How can such a man make Collin Lucas and his mama happy?
Is that what happened? CJ wondered as she set the journal aside. It was written in 1836, when Katie had been nine. She imagined Collin Lucas would have been probably twelve. Still young, still a child. But obviously he wasn’t allowed to remain a child long after.
Hardly aware her eyes were closing, she drifted into sleep, one hand resting limply on her belly, the other curling by her cheek.
A sound like a sob filled the room and the cover of the journal opened, while CJ lay sleeping. Her head thrashed back and forth on the pillow as the pages of the book started to turn, slowly at first, and then faster.
CJ’s breathing became shallow and harsh as a murmur fell from her lips. The energy in the room became angry, oppressive, and the book flew off the nightstand and crashed against the wall across the room.
CJ yelped and sat straight, all vestiges of sleep leaving her.
She stared in shock across the room as the book fell to the floor. Her eyes widened, a cold hand seemed to grip her around her heart as an unseen presence started to turn the pages.
White-faced, her eyes huge, CJ whispered, “What’s going on?”
All she wanted to do was run screaming from the house, but to get downstairs, she’d have to get out of bed and walk by the book that continued to have its pages turned.
Her breath catching in her throat, she said, “Who’s there?” Her voice sounded pathetic, even to her own ears, pathetic and scared. Memories of a small child locked in the library surfaced and she tumbled free of the bed, rising to her feet, hands clenched at her sides.
