by Jenny Lykins
“Take me upstairs,” she whispered, her breath fanning warm and sweet across his skin.
The point of no return, his mind screamed. But every other part of his body urged him on.
Button by button, his shirt fell open. “Take me upstairs,” she breathed again. “Please, Tylar.”
Tylar. Her husband. The words filtered into Ty’s brain.
He wanted to. Judas Priest, how he wanted to, even as Tylar. But he couldn’t - wouldn’t - do that to her.
“Callen,” he rasped, his breath catching when her lips found the bare skin of his chest. “Listen...” Her hands wandered until he caught them in his own. He swallowed hard, his head boring into the floor, as he tried to summon from deep within him the will to resist her. “Callen, there are some lines,” - he took another deep breath, searched for more will - “lines when, once crossed, can never be crossed back.”
“I know.” The words hummed against the hollow beneath his ear where her lips had returned. “Let’s cross it together.”
“Listen to me!”
He released her hands, lifted her head to stop the torture she inflicted. Her eyes opened, dreamy, love-filled, promising everything he’d never even known he wanted.
A loud banging at the door slapped them both back to reality, but though the heat of lust had left her eyes, she seemed not the least concerned that she lay atop him on the floor, with someone outside banging on the door.
“Just a...” - he cleared his throat - “just a minute,” he called, setting her away from him, buttoning buttons, tucking in his shirt. He helped her to her feet, combed his fingers through a handful of hair, then tried not to limp as he walked to the door.
“Come in, Magnolia.” He swung the door wide and the old servant entered, glanced at the untouched food on the table, at Ty, then at Callen. Ty nearly blushed at the realization that she knew exactly what had...almost…transpired.
“I’se sorry to interrupt yo...dinner, Miz Callen.” She glanced at Ty. “But they’s a soldier at the big house. Said he done saw your notice in the paper. His name be one on the list of missing soldiers.”
“Garrett?” she cried, grabbing Magnolia’s hand.
“No, baby. He ain’t no Yankee. He be on the list of Southern boys.”
Callen looked at Ty, clearly torn.
“I must go to him. I may have information on his family, if he is one of the men listed.”
Ty swallowed hard, nodding, none of it making sense. All he knew was he had to distance himself before he did something he could never undo.
“Of course,” he said under the scrutiny of Magnolia’s gaze. He had the overwhelming urge to check that his shirttail was tucked in while he inched himself behind a chair from the waist down. “Whatever you have to do.”
Magnolia grumbled, “Uhhh huh,” and left the cottage. Callen took his face in both of her hands, kissed him into an irregular heartbeat, then raced to the door.
“I won’t be long,” she called behind her.
He stood there for several seconds, watched her disappear down the path through the garden, swallowed back the knot in his throat.
“Goodbye,” he whispered into the night.
*******
Ty waited outside the kitchen door until Magnolia took a tea set and left toward the parlor, then he slipped into the room, past the work table, and through the cellar door without making a sound. Between people during the day and locked doors at night, this had been his first chance to make it even this far. He stood on the rough landing, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the Stygian darkness, until the black faded to gray and he managed to make out the shadowy shapes enough to dodge hanging herbs, sacks of potatoes, and crates of apples to get back to the panel that had brought him there.
He stopped and took a deep breath, saying one more goodbye.
He had to go. And go now. Every second he spent in this time, every second he spent with Callen, made his life and hers more complicated. If Magnolia hadn’t knocked on the door when she had, he’d been only a sweet sigh away from scooping Callen into his arms, taking her upstairs, and...
He shook his head, shoulders slumped, then forced his attention to the panel.
His heart raced and rose in his throat. Would it take him home?
The wooden door stood slightly ajar, just as he’d left it, with the adjacent panel closed. When he stepped inside, his foot hit the abandoned flashlight. He snatched it up, gripped it hard, tried to tame his shaking hands and his staccato pulse. What if he opened the door to face a manicured front lawn, a mounting block by the drive, Hobson roaming under the trees?
What if he was trapped there forever? Daniel would think he’d abandoned him. And who would take care of Dan?
He took a breath, held it, then shoved the door closed behind him. The flashlight flared in the dark, taking a good ten years off his life. He leaned against the crumbling brick wall until the roaring in his ears subsided, then, finally, he took a firm grasp of the handle and pulled steadily toward him.
Moonlight filtered into the interior of the chamber, framing the door with a dull gray, painting the cobwebs in eerie relief, and the tiny room filled with a burst of fresh air. Crickets chirped outside, a dog barked in the distance. Ty was almost afraid to look.
The panel swung back and to the left, and he raised his gaze to stare out at his surroundings.
And then his heart skipped a beat.
CHAPTER NINE
Pierre Chalmers looked up from the mixture of black cohosh, prickly ash, blue flag, and bitter poke root he’d been crushing as a remedy for the Widow Heis’s rheumatism. He knew someone approached, long before the visitor came into view of his secluded little cabin.
He wiped his hands, blew out the tallow candle, then sat and waited for the knock on the door.
“Come in,” he said before the knock ever came.
The door opened. Lavender twilight outlined the silhouette of the tall man looming in the doorway. Pierre knew the man, knew what he’d come for, but he would keep that knowledge to himself.
“I hear you know things. About spirits. That you have ‘the sight.’”
Pierre nodded. “I have many talents.” He motioned for the man to come in. The evening breeze from the woods carried liquor fumes into the tiny room. The man stumbled, falling onto a wooden bench with a curse.
“Light a candle!” the man barked.
“No,” Pierre said quietly.
The sounds of the night grew louder, but the man gave no more orders.
“You want me to make the man go away,” Pierre said, smiling at the predictable gasp.
“Who is he? Where did he come from?” came the question after several moments.
“Who do you think he is?”
“He’s dead!” The man jumped to his feet, knocking over the bench.
“As you should know,” Pierre agreed, beginning to enjoy himself.
“What the devil are you talking about, old man? What do you know of this? How do you know?”
Pierre shrugged. “You answered that when you entered my home. I know many things.”
“Very well, then. Tell me this. Why is he here? How is he here? And how do I get rid of him?”
Pierre leaned back in his seat and steepled his fingers.
“He is here,” he said, resolving to tell no more than this, “because of a promise.”
*******
“Crazy old bastard.” The weaving figure fell off his horse and stumbled toward the overseer’s cottage. He staggered among the shadows, careful to stay out of sight. “A promise. What the hell does that mean?” He tipped up a flask, welcomed the burn that was the only thing that would ease the worm eating at his gut for so many years.
The door stood open at the cottage, spilling light out onto the small porch. Callen stepped through, into the night, called out, “I won’t be long!” then raced along the path to the big house. Within minutes the lights inside went out and the man who’d come back from the dead to torment hi
m left the cottage and followed in Callen’s footsteps.
Could he be lucky enough for the bastard to really leave?
*******
Garrett Windsor woke with a gasp – the same lung-filling, hair-raising, wheezing gasp that always ended the nightmare.
He found himself sitting straight up in bed, as always. Covered with sweat, as always. His breath came harsh, his pulse pounding, as if he’d just run a race. Tangled bed linens clung to his damp skin and every hair on his body stood on end as he fought to calm his breathing. Each measured breath dissipated the remnants of the horrible dream until reality finally returned. If he just slowed his breathing, proved to his mind that he wasn’t drowning – or burning alive – the horror would soon fade.
Until the next time.
He kicked away the sweat-soaked sheets, staggered to the water pitcher, then dumped the entire damned contents over his head. As he leaned against the table, his weight on his hands, the chilly water slithered in runnels down his skin and formed hanging droplets on the inky spikes of his hair.
He laughed, a humorless, disgusted laugh. Nothing like a little cold water to prove he wasn’t drowning, or to put the fire out in a dream so real it left his skin feeling singed.
He pushed away from the table, raked a handful of wet hair off his forehead, then dragged on his shirt and trousers before shoving his feet into a pair of mended socks and battered boots. His heartbeat finally faded in his ears while he combed his hair with a shaky hand and then shaved as best he could without looking in the mirror. When the last of the terror faded, he left the former slave cabin and headed for breakfast in the kitchen of his employer, the widow, Estella Helsby.
Another Memphis dawn crept up the horizon when he stepped out into the cool, dew-drenched morning. The smears of pinkish violet brightening to sky blue, the smell of the latest blooming flower mingling with that of frying bacon, the cool, already humid air he breathed, always helped to chase away the worst vestiges of the nightmare and make him glad he was still alive. But it always left him, as well, with the question of why it had been he who had survived. Why he, when there’d been husbands and fathers who had people who needed them? Sons and brothers who hadn’t walked away from their families to fight on the opposite side of a controversial war. In essence, he no longer had a family, yet he’d not only walked away from the war in tact, but had survived the hellish explosion of the Sultana on his way north to be mustered out.
Survived, yes, he thought, as, even now, his deep breath brought on a shallow cough. Survived, but no longer wholly in tact.
“Good morning.” Estella slid a pan of biscuits into the brick oven as he entered the kitchen building. She dusted floured hands against her patched apron, turned the bacon in the frying pan, then started cracking a half dozen eggs into a chipped crockery bowl. Her glance, though somewhat shy, seemed to miss nothing. “You had the nightmare again, didn’t you?”
He didn’t have to answer. She’d seen the aftermath too many times for the question to be anything but rhetorical. She studied him, her clear blue eyes worried. A short strand of baby fine hair the color of honey slipped from the tattered ribbon which held the waist-length mass back, and she self-consciously pushed the hair behind her ear.
No one that young and beautiful should be a widow.
Garrett’s fingers itched to smooth the tendril back for her, but the last, lingering memories of the nightmare made it easier for him to set aside those longings.
He leaned against the doorjamb and watched her beat the eggs into a froth that would at least look like enough to feed four people.
“It smells wonderful,” he said, ignoring his feelings, her question, the weakness of character his ever-present nightmares implied.
Her lips curved into an understanding smile as she worked. “Would you call Billy and Mary Ella? They’ll not be far.”
Garrett turned to call Estella’s children to breakfast just as they raced up the two stacked, flat rocks used as steps, bursting into the kitchen in a whirlwind of energy.
“Give it to me! It’s mine!” Mary Ella jumped as high as her five year old body could jump, danced around Billy, reached for the glossy black, half-grown kitten her brother held high, dangling the furry creature over her like a carrot on a stick. The cat appeared to be wearing a tiny sun bonnet and ragged, lacy dress. “Mommy, make him give me Blackie! She’s mine!”
Billy teased her, lowering the kitten to within his sister’s reach, then snatching it away at the last moment with the delighted cackle of a boy of seven good-naturedly tormenting one younger than he. Mary Ella answered with an ear piercing shriek.
Estella, serene as ever, seemed oblivious to this exchange, but when she casually wiped her hands on her apron and picked up a large wooden spoon, Billy blew out a defeated breath, chanced a slight roll of his eyes, and relinquished the yowling animal into the arms of his sister.
“There, there, baby.” Mary Ella cooed and cradled the over-dressed cat as it tried desperately to escape her arms. “Mommy won’t let the mean ol’ Yankees get you.”
Estella’s horrified gaze flew to Garrett’s while bright spots of crimson flooded her cheeks.
He shook his head, stopping the reproach on her lips he could almost hear.
“This is all she knows,” he said, the sting of the child’s innocent words not nearly as bad as when adults voiced their opinions. “Besides, it’s like playing Knights and Dragons, only now it’s Johnny Reb and Billy Yank.”
Garrett had no one but himself to blame for any ill will he suffered. And he had no regrets for his decisions. Once he’d seen the chaos of the “reconstruction government,” he had chosen to remain in the South and work for fair treatment of the defeated Southerners, even though he’d voluntarily helped to defeat them. However, he’d not been able to bring himself to return to Windsor. For reasons unknown to even him, he had settled in Memphis, only miles from where he’d lived his worst nightmare. Perhaps it was his way of facing his biggest, most persistent demon, before returning to a family whose members might very well turn their backs on him.
Estella respected his wish to overlook Mary Ella’s comment. Instead, she set about placing breakfast on the table while Garrett herded the children toward the water pump at the sink. Blackie finally managed to gain her freedom in a flying leap over Mary Ella’s shoulder, only to land on the floor with a rolling thud, scramble for footing, then trip her way out the door as fast as a cat garbed in a frilly dress could run.
CHAPTER TEN
The silhouette of his Explorer stood out against the lush dark woods surrounding the ruins.
Oh, thank God.
After slowly scanning the area for any late night tourists, determining the grounds to be deserted, Ty stepped from the column and gave the door a little tug behind him. The heavy, stucco-covered panel rolled back into place, sealing the chamber, completing the picture of an innocuous base to a free-standing pillar.
On shaky legs he made his way back to the car, climbed behind the wheel, then leaned back against the headrest, breathing in the familiar, welcome scent of car leather and stale exhaust fumes.
Holy crap. Could he have dreamed the whole thing? Of course he hadn’t, but he still couldn’t help but question his sanity. His gaze strayed back to the ruins, to the two dozen columns outlining the memories and ghosts of an era past. He could almost hear her voice, taste her kiss, smell her scent.
He shook his head. “Thoughts like that’ll kill you, McCall.”
The car roared to life with the turn of the key, and he forced his thoughts back to the present and the problems he had to deal with here. Daniel had some explaining to do when Ty got home, and he concentrated on the speech he would give the little twerp while he waved the cigarettes under his nose. Concentrated hard, so he wouldn’t think of Callen.
He groaned. Balancing the role of big brother, father, and yes, even mother, sometimes went beyond his best efforts. He and Dan had always been so close, but the older Dan got,
the more parental Ty had to think. It was not something that came naturally.
Five hours of fighting off thoughts of Callen and trying to compose a calm speech to deter his brother from smoking coffin nails made his drive home about as relaxing as a series of shock treatments. By the time he pulled into the driveway shortly after dawn, he had a killer headache and an overwhelming desire to rip off someone’s head.
He grabbed the pack of cigarettes, then muffled a curse when Celia, the housekeeper/teenager-sitter, met him at the door, arms crossed over her ample bosom. After a deep calming breath, he faced her. “What now?”
Celia rolled her eyes. “See for yourself. He just came home last night with it.”
Ty didn’t even bother to ask what “it” was. He’d find out soon enough.
“Where is he?”
Celia pointed her chin toward the back of the house. “In his room, getting ready for school if he hasn’t crawled out the window. I’ve run that crowd off he’s been hanging around with at least a half dozen times this week. But there is a new boy. Name’s Sam. Seems like a good enough kid.”
Ty fought to keep his shoulders from slumping. He wasn’t up for this.
“You can go, Celia. Thanks for everything.” He gave the housekeeper an affectionate kiss on the cheek, then turned to go in search of his brother.
She hesitated, cleared her throat, and Ty turned back to face her.
“You know I’ll do anything for you and Danny, Ty. I love you boys like you were my own. But Danny needs more of you. He needs a father figure.”
“I know, Cele, I know,” he said, forcing patience into his voice, but in his mind he wanted to remind her he wasn’t a father. And, God help him, he didn’t ever want to be one.
Celia patted his hand, then hooked her purse over her arm. “You still want me to clean next Thursday?” At Ty’s nod, she opened the door, then stopped. “Let the boy live, Ty. Remember he’s sixteen and stupid.”
