by Meg Benjamin
He blinked. “It’s that bad?”
“It’s that confusing.” She sighed, running her fingers through her tangle of curls. San Antonio humidity wasn’t as bad as Houston, but it wasn’t good. She’d decided to forget the blow dryer for the weekend. “I don’t really know how to explain all of this, but I figure if we have a glass of wine it might get easier.” Or not. At least having a glass of wine would delay things long enough to give her a chance to think.
“Okay, now you’ve really got my interest.” His eyes narrowed as he reached for the wine bottle. “Does this have something to do with the whole haunted house business.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. I’m not exactly sure.”
“But . . .”
The sound of the ringing doorbell echoed feebly from the depths of the house. “Pizza, probably,” she said brightly.
He gave her a long look, then shook his head. “To be continued.”
“Sure. We’ll have to talk about it later.” Unfortunately.
***
Dinner proceeded under something of a cloud, which Ray would never have anticipated when he’d first seen Emma walking up his front steps. She looked great. She looked hot. She looked like he going to be a very lucky man indeed later this evening.
Now he wasn’t so sure about that.
Emma nibbled on her pizza and drank her wine and prevented Helen from eating the remaining pizza as well as the box.
Helen. She’d appeared, literally, in the living room shortly before Emma had arrived. Even knowing that she wasn’t exactly a normal dog, it was still disconcerting to have her suddenly materialize in front of him. Of course, she then proceeded to behave like most of the other dogs he’d known in his life—stealing snacks and begging for what she couldn’t steal. He wondered if the ghosts who were currently interfering with his life had anything to do with the sudden appearance of a retired hellhound in his vicinity. He wouldn’t be surprised, but then not much surprised him these days. Except for Emma, who managed to surprise him almost every time he saw her.
He picked up the wine bottle and refilled her glass. “So that makes glass number two. Ready to talk yet?”
She blinked, widening her eyes a little as she stared at the glass in her hand. “Two glasses? I never have two glasses.”
“Live a little.” He grinned, hoping she might loosen up. Or something.
She glanced around the kitchen. “Where’s Helen?”
“Gone again. Do you need her for this?”
Emma shook her head. “I just wondered where she was.” She closed her eyes for a moment, as if she were gathering her thoughts. “Okay. Here goes. Your great-grandmother came from Ireland originally.”
He nodded. “Yeah, right. You said that earlier.”
“Right, but what I guess you don’t know is that your family had a particular profession in Ireland and that your great-grandmother brought it over with her.”
Shit. He hadn’t figured she’d find out about the whole medium thing at the historical society. He’d assumed the district would frown upon people who practiced that kind of talent openly. He just wanted to know what kind of woman Siobhan was apart from her occupation. Then again, maybe Emma didn’t know all the details yet. “What profession was that?”
She combed her fingers through her curls and sighed. “She was a medium. So was your grandmother.”
Busted. He should have known gossip that juicy couldn’t be kept quiet. Maybe everybody in town knew. Except for him until Rosie had enlightened him. “Okay.”
Her forehead furrowed. “Okay? Okay? You knew about this already?”
“I didn’t until all of this stuff at the Hampton house started happening. But yeah, I found out about it a few days ago. It was sort of a family secret.”
“So what exactly did you expect me to find at the historical society that you didn’t already know?” She looked slightly pissed.
“Just . . .” He stared down into his wine. What had he expected her to find? “I don’t know exactly. More about her as a person, I guess. Who was she? What kind of life did she lead? Is anything about my family related to what’s happening to us now?”
Of course the most important questions were Why the hell did she pass on these weird abilities that I’d just as soon not have, and what do I do now that I have them? Not that Emma was likely to find answers to those particular questions at the King William Historical Society. And not that he was going to discuss them with her now.
“There wasn’t that much information about her otherwise,” Emma said slowly. “There weren’t many references to her other than this one book that talked about her being a medium. And that sort of distracted me.”
“That’s okay.” He blew out a breath. “So now you told me what you were worried about and we’re good, right?” He picked up another piece of pizza.
She closed her eyes for a moment, her fingers fastening on the edge of the table. “Not entirely.”
Ah, shit. “What else?”
She took a deep breath. “Last night I had this dream.”
Slivers of ice seemed to drip down his backbone. Lately, dreams were never good. “About what?”
“It wasn’t about something so much as it was about somebody. I dreamed I was in this room, and this woman was there with me. She had on an old-fashioned dress and her hair was all done up like something out of the late nineteenth century. And she had a black cane.”
The slivers of ice solidified into a solid block encasing his spine. “A cane.”
Emma nodded. “She held it in front of her, like she was sort of leaning on it.”
Right. He concentrated on trying to slow down his pulse rate. “What about her? Did she do anything interesting?”
Emma shook her head. “It wasn’t so much what she did as what she said. She told me to find ‘the keepsake, the love token.’ And that some girl had gone to the wrong kind of medium.”
“The wrong kind of medium?” Ray shook his head. “That sounds sort of like dream talk. I don’t even know what that means.”
“Don’t ask me—I don’t know either. And she said . . .” Emma closed her eyes again, as if she were trying to remember exactly. “She said someone was growing stronger and that we had to move quickly.”
“Someone?”
“The woman said she was growing stronger, so I guess she was talking about some other woman. But I don’t know who she meant. And I mean, it was just a dream. A really vivid dream, but a dream.”
I know who she meant. His shoulders clenched even tighter. “A keepsake.”
Emma nodded. “A love token—those were her exact words.”
He sighed. “What constitutes a love token anyway?”
She reached for her tote bag, pulling out the inevitable stack of papers. “I looked it up. It’s something given to seal your love—a token of your affection, I guess. One of the sources said it could also be a charm. Maybe Livingston gave her something that was supposed to be a token of his love for her.”
“But how would that tie in with a medium?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Amina took it to the medium for some reason.”
“And the she who’s getting stronger would be who?”
“Amina? I mean, assuming Amina’s the ghost in the house.”
He leaned back in his chair, trying to get his thoughts to line up. And trying to ignore the elephant in the room—the fact that the same dream woman had talked to them both. “So Amina was worried about Livingston Grunewald sticking around?”
“Which turned out to be something she needed to be worried about,” Emma muttered.
“Yeah. So according to the old lady in your dream, she went to some fortune-teller or something and got a love token?”
“Maybe. Maybe the fortune-teller gave her something that was supposed to keep Livingston interested in her. You k
now, that makes sense—in a weird, kind of sad way.”
“And according to your dream girl, we need to find this love token before the spirit in the house gets stronger?” He took a long swallow of wine, hoping it would make the whole conversation seem less weird.
Emma grimaced. “I don’t know whether that’s what she meant or not. I mean, it was all so vague. I’m not even sure she was talking about the Hampton house. I was here when I had the dream. And it was just a dream, after all, even if it was a really vivid one. So I wasn’t going to take it seriously at first.”
His hand tightened into a fist. “Not at first? But now you’ve changed your mind?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, sighing. “Okay, this is the really confusing part. And you have to promise not to think I’m an absolute loon. Believe me, I know how crazy it’s going to sound.”
“I think I can guarantee I won’t consider anything you say to be crazy.” He worked on keeping his voice steady. “I’ve had lots of experience with crazy over the past couple of weeks.”
She turned and dug through her stack of papers again, finally pulling out a photocopy. “I found this in a book at the historical society this morning.” She pushed the paper across the table to him.
He stared down. A woman stared back. She was dressed in a close-fitting blouse with a high neck and long, full sleeves that buttoned at her wrists. Her hair was gathered on top of her head in a luxuriant heap. She held a shining black cane in front of her as she gazed impassively at the camera. Not intimidated. Not indignant. Just . . . waiting.
It was the woman from his dream. The one who’d helped him drive the predatory ghost away before she could do much more than mark him. Even though he’d only seen her through the fog, he recognized her. His fingers trembled slightly at the edge of the page as he sucked in a breath. “Who is she?”
“Your great-grandmother. Siobhan Riordan. The woman I dreamed about last night.”
Right. He really should have seen this one coming. Even after death, his female relatives seemed determined to screw around with his life. He sank back in his chair, wondering just how much he’d be able to explain to Emma. Was there any way he could simply let it go? Maybe keep it to himself? Not if you want to go on working with her. Go on being with her at all.
He sighed. “Okay, here’s the thing. I dreamed about her too.”
Emma blinked. “Last night?”
He shook his head. “No. A couple of nights after the séance. Only I didn’t just dream about her. It was the last night I slept in the Hampton house, and I think I dreamed about the other ghost first. Whoever she is.”
“She?”
Amazing how little he wanted to talk about this. On the other hand, he didn’t have much choice. “She. A woman. I couldn’t see her clearly. It was this very . . . sensual dream.” He gritted his teeth. If he were Emma, he’d probably be blushing up a storm at this point. “Only not good sensual. Sort of scary sensual. Like assault.”
Emma frowned. “The ghost raped you?”
Oh this conversation just got better and better. “No, not exactly. It was just . . . she seemed sort of insatiable. I felt like I needed to get away from her but I didn’t know how.” He was fairly sure his ears were flaming. “I couldn’t push her off.”
“Okay, but how does your great-grandmother come into it?”
“She appeared in the dream and told me to shove the other ghost away. I don’t know if she helped or not, but after she said it, I managed to get away from her—the bad one, I mean. And the bad one disappeared after I shoved her off.”
“If your great-grandmother was a powerful medium when she was alive, maybe she’s still powerful. Did she talk to you after that?”
“Yeah. Some.” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, trying to sound matter-of-fact about something that so clearly wasn’t. “She said the other ghost was dangerous, which I’d already figured out by then, believe me. And she said there was danger in the house.”
“Anything else?”
Listen to the sensitive. He blew out a breath. Not going there. Not going to involve Emma any more than he already had. “Not really.”
“And it was this same woman? Siobhan Riordan?”
He nodded. “I couldn’t see her clearly. Not as clearly as you did, I guess. But she was dressed the same way, with her hair up on top of her head. And she had that cane.”
“Sounds like Siobhan.” She stared down at the picture again. “I don’t suppose it’s possible that either of us saw this picture before, that it’s hanging on the wall in this house somewhere.”
He started to shake his head, then paused. “I’d say no, but I haven’t spent much time around here—mostly I’ve just been in the kitchen and the dining room and the living room. And my bedroom.” He felt a small twitch of heat. Just his body reminding him that there were things he could look forward to after the grim part of the evening was over. “I might have seen something without realizing it. We can take a quick tour if you want to.”
Emma frowned. “I haven’t been around here at all, so I’m even less likely to have seen a picture, but maybe we should look around just in case.”
“Okay by me.” He pushed himself to his feet, extending his hand to pull her from her chair. If nothing else, maybe he could maneuver her upstairs after they’d made a quick circuit. He really wanted to take her to bed and forget about everything else.
“The only room you haven’t seen on this floor is the study—it’s down here.” He started down the hall. Rosie’s study door opened to the right. He stepped inside, then paused.
Bookcases covered every wall, crammed with the oddest assortment of books he’d ever seen. Some looked like the kind of bindings you’d find in a library, but others were bound in metal or leather, and some even looked like wood. He stepped to the nearest case and pulled down a large maroon leather volume.
“Accounts of Supernatural Occurrences In the Low Country,” he read. “Looks like a real page-turner.”
Emma wandered along the cases, staring up at the books. “They all seem to be about supernatural stuff—ghosts and spirits mostly.” She reached for a higher shelf, pulling down a bright red book. “This one’s on demons. Is this Rosie’s stuff?”
He shook his head. “Probably left over from Grandma Caroline. I don’t think Rosie got rid of Grandma’s stuff when she moved in.”
Emma nodded absently, moving further around the room, then stopped in front of the fireplace on the far side. “There’s a portrait.”
He stepped beside her, staring up at the painting over the mantel piece. The woman had gray hair, gray eyes, harsh cheekbones. Not somebody you’d want to cross or run into in a dark alley.
“Is that Siobhan?” Emma asked softly.
“I’m pretty sure that’s Grandma Caroline. I don’t remember her well, but I remember her enough to recognize her.”
“She looks like Siobhan.” Emma tilted her head. “Maybe.”
“She was one tough old bird. Divorced her husband after my mom was born. Then cut off my mom when she chose to leave home and get married to my dad. If Siobhan was like her, she must have been a terror.”
“I don’t know. Siobhan didn’t strike me that way.” She shrugged. “No pictures of her here, though.
“No. I think we’ll have to accept that we saw Siobhan Riordan in our dreams and no place else.”
“There’s another thing.” She paused for a long moment.
“Which is?”
“You saw her at the Hampton house. Why?”
Is this a trick question? “I don’t know. Why not?”
“Because she lived here. It sort of makes sense that I’d see her here. But why did you see her over there?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know.” He could feel a tension headache forming at the base of his skull.
> She turned to look at him, her blue eyes troubled. “Maybe we should just stop.”
He frowned. “Stop what? Stop looking?”
She shook her head. “No. Just, you know, stop for tonight. Stop thinking about it. Do something else.”
He watched her for a long moment, then brushed his fingers along the line of her jaw, pausing to tip her chin up so that he could take her mouth. She tasted of wine, with the faint scent of rosemary from her hair. “Yeah, let’s do something else,” he whispered.
She pulled back slightly, cupping his face in her hands. “Let’s.”
Chapter 14
They didn’t bother to turn on the lights. Ray was a shadow in the moonlight, leaning over her, his hands like water sliding across her body.
She pushed herself upright on the bed, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down against her. She touched her lips to his cheek, ran her tongue down the line of his jaw and underneath, pressing her hands to his bare chest and feeling his nipples pebble against her palms.
Oh sweet, so sweet. She brought her lips to his collarbone, then drifted down his body, tasting the faint saltiness of his skin. He plunged his hands into her hair, moving his fingers across her scalp as her tongue darted into his navel.
She heard the sharp intake of his breath and felt a quick jolt of feminine delight. She moved lower, dropping her hands to cup him.
He sighed. “Easy, babe.”
She relaxed her hands slightly—hurting him would not be a great way to start the evening.
She scooted down farther, dipping her head to take him in her mouth. She’d never done this before, but she figured she could play it by ear. Or tongue. Something should work. It wasn’t exactly rocket science. She ran her tongue along his length, then twirled around the head, sucking. Above her, Ray groaned.
Okay, clearly on the right track here. He tasted of salt and musk. She grasped the base of his shaft with both hands, then worked on her rhythm, sinking up and down, running her tongue around the end. Ray dropped back on the pillow as she knelt above him. He closed his eyes.
