A Ghostly Charm

by MJ Fredrick

  He could see the panic in her face as Cindi aimed the flashlight down. The floor was wayyy down. The fall could kill her.

  “Here.” Justin nudged him just a bit and lay flat on the steps, reaching to grab Maddy’s wrist. Once they both had a hold on her, Mal could release her fingers and get a more solid grasp. Her whimpers of fear echoed in the room as he and Justin worked slowly to pull her up.

  When she was in Mal’s arms, he rolled with her toward the outside wall, pressing her head to his shoulder, absorbing her trembling.

  “What happened?” Justin asked, after catching his own breath. “I just saw you jerk toward the stairs, and then you went over.”

  “I was pushed,” Maddy said, her focus on Mal. “They’re going to try everything to stop us.”

  “Then we need to be aware of everything.” He looked at her. “You up for it?” he asked, though he wanted to take her as far away from here as he could get.

  She nodded. As if she’d do otherwise. He climbed to his feet and reached down to help, but she shook him off.

  “I dropped the charm,” she murmured.

  “We’ll find it when we get down there.”

  They moved closer to the wall and eased down the stairs with their backs to it, holding onto each other. Once they reached the basement, though, they were at a dead end. There was no exit from the room.

  “Well, now what?” Cindi demanded.

  “You two look for a way out,” Mal said, indicating Cindi and Justin. He picked up his flashlight that had fallen the fifteen feet undamaged. “Maddy and I have to find the charm, because we can’t do anything without it.”

  Cindi grumbled, but moved off with Justin, shining her beam against the walls. Mal and Maddy dropped to their hands and knees trying to locate the charm that had fallen into a crack in the floor.

  A crack. Mal and Maddy exchanged a glance. Maddy held the flashlight while he inserted his fingers around the edge of the dusty tile.

  “I can’t get it,” he said, sitting back on his heels with a huff of frustration.

  “Let me try.” Maddy handed off the flashlight and slid her fingertips easily in the tile to lift it.

  A hot, tornadic wind accompanied the tile, blowing upward in a column, sending them all tumbling against the wall. The pages of the ritual ripped out of Mal’s pocket and swirled about the room.

  “Maddy, the poker!” Mal cried from across the room, cursing the fact that he’d dropped his. He could hear the shrieks of the ghosts as she struck out.

  They had to get down to that chamber and end this, but how? They were motionless against the wall as the heat from the escaping spirits filled the room.

  Maddy swung the iron bar until her shoulders ached. She’d known the spirits would try to stop them, but not so many! So many she couldn’t make out faces or forms, just their urgent need to be free from whatever held them in that chamber.

  The thing she had to face.

  Unable to hold the poker any longer, she tossed it aside and crept on her belly toward the opening she’d created, no longer filled with escaping spirits. She peered into the hole, and sure enough, there in the center of the room with no entrance, glowed a giant symbol matching her charm. She touched her jean pocket, reassuring herself it was safe. Now, to get down there and close the gate she had opened.

  She swung her legs over the opening, murmured, “Elizabeth, help me,” and let herself drop.

  She fell to the floor, landing hard on her hip, and sat up, dazed. The room was round, and five symbols marked the walls. The one beneath her was warm and pulsed with an energy that drained her, but she managed to push to her feet and scramble off of it. She drew the charm from her pocket, and it heated in her hand, glowing and pulsing like the one on the floor. She sought her memory for the words of the spell, the ones they’d printed out on papers she’d last seen swirling up the staircase with the escaping spirits.

  Then Mal dropped into the room beside her, landing in a crouch, the papers clasped in his hands. He rose and joined her at the first symbol.

  “Let’s do this. We have to move in a pentacle, it says, from one symbol to the next.”

  They’d already agreed he’d read the ritual while she used her charm to deactivate each symbol, thus closing the veil.

  “Where do I start?”

  “Don’t know if it matters.”

  She pulled out the charm and pressed it into the center of the symbol as Mal chanted behind her.

  “I call on the spirits to return to the veil, in the name of the holy and all who watch over living and dead. I call on the spirits to return to whence they came and leave in peace all who live on this side of the veil.”

  She crossed the room on shaking legs. So far so good.

  She never should have thought that. After she touched the second seal, accompanied by Mal’s incantation, a surge of power burst from the seal in the center in the room, knocking her forward into the wall and throwing Mal across the room, where he landed with a grunt of pain. She pressed her hand to her split cheek as she staggered to her feet. She didn’t know what the power was, what it meant, but she ran across the room to the third seal, aching, bleeding, worried about Mal, and repeated the incantation on her own. Behind her, the heat grew unbearable. Something was trying to stop her, but she didn’t have time to reason it out. Limping now, she raced to the fourth seal, shouting the incantation as the sound of fury, a deafening scream that confused her thoughts.

  And then Mal was beside her at the last seal, joining his hand with hers and pressing the charm to the seal as they shouted the incantation together, while the air heated and swirled around them.

  Suddenly, it was still and silent. Mal pressed against Maddy’s back, as though he’d been protecting her. At that, he turned his face into her hair and kissed her.

  “Did we do it?” She turned to look at the seal in the floor, then to the wall where she’d last pressed the charm. “Mal, it’s gone.”

  The moved away from the wall and crossed the floor, where no trace of the seal remained.

  “I think we did it,” he answered, pulling her against his side.

  “Hey, you guys okay down there?” Justin called through the hole in the ceiling.

  “We’re fine,” Mal said, his arm tight around Maddy’s waist. “Now, get us the hell out of here!”

  Chapter Eight

  The streets were quiet as the four staggered back to the inn. Mal hadn’t let go of Maddy since Justin and Cindi had pulled them out of the chamber. She didn’t care. She didn’t think she could walk on her own, anyway. She was beyond exhausted, and now she could sleep.

  Mal followed her to her room and rested his hands on her hips as she unlocked the door.

  “Mal, I’m tired.”

  “Me, too,” he said into her hair.

  “I’m dirty.”

  “I could use a shower.”

  She pushed the door in and he followed. She turned and pressed her hand to his chest. “You don’t have any clean clothes.”

  He bent to brush his cheek against hers. “Not planning on wearing any.” He eased back to look into her eyes. “You were incredible in there, Maddy. Brave as hell.”

  “Scared as hell.”

  He shook his head. “Amazing.” He tucked his fingers under the knit of her t-shirt and pushed upward, backing her toward the shower.

  Lust overwhelmed exhaustion. By the time the backs of her legs hit the side of the tub, she was down to her panties, and he was in his shorts. They tangled as they reached together for the faucet. He chuckled against the corner of her mouth as they stepped into the tub under the streaming water.

  “This could be more dangerous than facing the ghosts.”

  She looped her arm around his neck and slid the inside of her thigh along the outside of his. “More satisfying outcome, though.”

  “Hmph.” He coasted his hands up her waist to her breasts, teasing her nipples as he pressed her against the wall. They kissed, mouths hot, tongues tangling. He
groaned into her mouth as she rubbed against him.

  “Tickles,” he said, and buried his face in her neck, nuzzling, nipping.

  “Wimp.” But she was breathless as she rested her hands on his shoulders and angled her head to allow him better access.

  He rested his hands high on her thighs, his thumbs circling. Her breathing hitched and she shifted closer. He groaned through his teeth when she closed her hand around him.

  “Soon,” he managed.

  “Still dirty,” she gasped, pushing at his shoulders to stand beneath the shower.

  “Oh, yeah.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  She held out the soap and turned her back while he lathered it between his hands and coasted his hands over her skin, down her legs, crouching to lift one foot, then the other, before sliding back up to slide between her legs. She gasped and stiffened, arching her back. He pressed a kiss to the small of her back and stood.

  “Good?” he asked.

  She turned and latched onto him. “Good.”

  With no more grace than they’d entered the tub, they left it, using the towels only cursorily to wipe the water away before they tumbled onto the bed.

  “Condom,” she whispered, her hand wrapped around his erection, guiding him against her soft, swollen flesh.

  “Yeah.” He rolled off the bed and grabbed his jeans, fumbling for his wallet and finding what he needed before he returned to the bed. He’d barely sheathed himself before she rose over him, her belly brushing his as she lowered herself onto him. Both of them gasped. She took him into her, deep, her nails digging into his shoulders as his hands gripped her hips.

  They took a moment and caught their breath before she went wild over him, shifting her hold to the headboard. Her breasts rubbed against his chest as she thrust down on him, again and again, skin slapping, headboard banging against the wall.

  He reached back to take her hands from the headboard, tumbled her onto her back, and pinned her wrists over her head. Her knees closed on his ribs, high, leaving her open for his strokes.

  Soft, hot, slick. The words, the sensations tumbled over each other in his mind, the pleasure erasing every other thought.

  She pulled her hands free and reached for him, brought his mouth to hers, her kiss as hungry as her body, her tongue, her teeth. She bowed into him, straining, like she wanted to take his whole body inside her—a place he would love to be.

  He wanted to feel her wrapped around him for the rest of his life, feel her mouth on his skin, hear her soft sighs of pleasure.

  He kissed her throat, her cheek, her temple, before he brought her hand to his mouth to kiss her wrist, then her palm. He held her gaze as he changed his strokes.

  “Look at me, Maddy,” he whispered when her eyes drifted closed.

  When she opened her eyes and looked into his, he moved with deliberation, drawing moans from her throat. He caressed her pretty red hair back from her face. When she smiled, he lost all pretense of control, and drove into her as she grasped him, moved into him, and came around him. Her movements brought his own orgasm, washing through him with an intensity he’d never known.

  When he lifted his head, she was smiling a loose, goofy smile.

  “We are really good at this,” she murmured.

  “Mm, should definitely do it again.” He barely had energy to deal with the condom. “Tomorrow.” He turned to pull her against his side and closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again, Maddy was getting dressed.

  “Hey,” he said, propping up on his elbow.

  Apparently he startled her because she whirled toward him with one leg in her jeans and almost fell on her ass. He grinned.

  “We took care of the ghosts, remember? Nothing to be scared of.”

  She didn’t grin back. In fact, she looked upset that he’d interrupted her. Realization punctured his sleep-fogged mind and he sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

  Oh, hell no. She was bolting.

  “Where you going?” he asked as casually as he could manage.

  “I’m heading for the ferry. I heard the horn, so I know it’s running.”

  “Running. Interesting choice of words.”

  She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. That’s one of the things he liked about her. No games. “It’s time for me to get back to real life. At least, try to figure out what real life is.”

  He braced his hands on the mattress. “And you were going to do this by sneaking out.”

  She straightened and shoved her hair back. “What does it matter? None of this was real. It’s like a lost weekend. No one will believe it, so it’s better just to pretend it never happened.”

  “None of it was real?” he repeated, gesturing to the bed, knowing as soon as he did that it was the wrong tactic.

  “That was sex. Great sex, also something no one will believe.” She leaned against the dresser and pulled on a sock.

  Great sex? That was all she thought this had been? Okay, the great, he’d take, but damn. “Why is it so important that anyone believe anything?” he demanded.

  “It’s not.” She pulled on the other sock. “I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to write this story.”

  “What does the story have to do with you and me?”

  “Nothing. There is no you and me. It was a tense situation, you’re a great looking guy, sparks flew. That was it.” But she wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  That was it? That sure as hell was not it. He wanted to shove off the bed and grab her shoulders, shake some sense into her. But he couldn’t think of a damn thing to say that she wouldn’t dismiss. For once, his charm failed him. And instead of fighting for the woman he’d fallen for, he watched her walk out the door.

  Chapter Nine

  Two months later

  Maddy gripped the rail of the ferry watching the churning waves beneath her. They matched the churning in her stomach. She’d lied. She’d lied to Mal, to the people at the magazine, to her family, and most of all to herself. Her attraction to Mal hadn’t been a passing thing. It had been a passion like she’d never expected, a trust like she’d never experienced, and she was stupid and shallow not to admit that it had changed her.

  She wasn’t the same woman on this ferry ride as she’d been on the first.

  She straightened as the island came in sight and her pulse picked up.

  Time to admit the truth. But would he be here? She’d checked the website to see if he was conducting tours off-island, but no, he was scheduled to be here.

  The town looked good considering what it had been through two months ago. People walked around as if nothing had happened, as if nothing had changed. Maybe they hadn’t, but she had.

  Something else had changed. There, next to the diner, was a new age shop called Kayla’s Secrets. So Mal’s sister was home, back where she belonged, running the store as she’d dreamed. Maddy’s heart warmed. Good. She stood outside the shop for a moment, looking at the colorful flyers in the windows, advertising everything from Mal’s ghost tours to the clambake next week. Then she looked through the glass door to see Mal behind the counter, watching her.

  She couldn’t read his expression. God, how did he do that, keep his expression so neutral? Maybe he didn’t want to scare her off before he had his say. That would be only fair. But nothing in his stance was welcoming. That was the chance she took when she came out here. She needed to suck it up or forever wonder what might have been. With that in mind, she stepped into the shop.

  She was so focused on Mal behind the counter that she didn’t see the blonde woman approach from her right. Mal’s sister Kayla. She had to be. Same blonde hair, same hazel eyes, but her smile was different, appealing without his blatant charm.

  “You’re her, aren’t you? Maddy?”

  “How did you know that?” Maddy asked, taken aback.

  Kayla inclined her head toward Mal. “He told me about you. That you were the take-charge sort. I guess you figured he’d never come after you.”

&
nbsp; “I left him with no reason to want to.” Maddy slid her gaze to Mal, who stood with his hands braced on the counter, glaring at them.

  “Then it’s good you came back.” Kayla smiled and squeezed Maddy’s hand before she moved away toward a customer.

  Okay, no more stalling. Maddy squared her shoulders and approached Mal. “Can we talk?”

  “I’m working.”

  “Okay.” As much as she’d tried to imagine this moment, she hadn’t imagined that he’d shut her out altogether. But she hadn’t come all this way for nothing. “Can we meet later?”

  “I’m busy later.”

  That was something she’d feared. In the past few weeks he might have hooked up with someone else, perhaps Cindi. Her stomach knotted, and pride forced her to fight the burn of tears. Instead, she nodded shortly and turned to leave.

  “I thought you’d be stubborn about this, but I thought you’d at least let me speak my piece,” she said over her shoulder.

  “You want to talk stubborn?” he called, and she turned back to see him coming around the corner after her. “You’re the one who refused to open your mind after what we went through. You’re the one who decided it had all been like a bad dream and you couldn’t let it interfere with your goals. You call me stubborn?”

  “Yes, I call you stubborn.” She stopped toe to toe with him. “You sat here on your laurels for two months, waiting for me to come back.”

  “I wasn’t waiting for you to come back. And what the hell are laurels?”

  She waved off the question, determined to charge forward. “Yeah? Well if you were so sure there was something between us, you should have at least called me.”

  “You made it clear I was no more than a boy toy to you. A good lay. Not exactly the way to inspire a guy to come running after you, even if I knew where you were.”

  She felt her face heat at the honesty of his words. She may well have blown it by trying to protect herself. She may well have thrown away a future with this brave, charming man.