by Trisha Telep
The room made a whoosh as if the air had been sucked out of it.
Her back was to Danny, but she knew what he saw, knew what he was thinking. Her breasts weren’t large but they were perfect – soft and erotic with dark-pink nipples that Brian had said played a part in every dirty dream he’d had since the first time he saw her naked.
She heard Danny’s breathing clearly now and felt his gaze like a laser, tracing the outline of her body. Her blood beat like a tympano in her ears.
Now, Danny, now.
Greg caressed her breasts, laying them out in his palms like ripe exotic fruits and drawing the nipples between his thumbs and forefingers until the flesh tightened.
The coat rack hit the floor with a crash, and when Cass wheeled around the door shimmered red and Danny was gone.
Danny swung at the building’s half-timbered facade, happy when his palm met resistance. Why could he feel the cold and the roughness of the wood and the sting of scraped flesh when he couldn’t feel her? Why could he smell the scent of pears and spice on her hair and not wrap the silky tresses around his fist? Was the burning jealousy that smoldered like a pool of molten metal in his chest the closest he would ever get to love?
He was nothing to her – couldn’t be. Not when he lacked substance to do as much as curl a single finger around hers. Greg was wrong for her. Danny knew she knew it. Greg, with his smooth talk and empty, avaricious head. Of course, the only moments Danny could share with her would be the sort of moments they’d already shared, talking about hockey or arguing over the remote.
He winced.
Technically, that last bit wasn’t entirely true. Unlike Cass, he knew there was another way. He could lose himself in another person. Like diving off a cliff in the dark, he could let go of everything and pray some meaningful part of him would still be left when he surfaced. It was both death and the chance for a life, and he’d felt the opportunity with each passing stranger, almost as you would the hum of static electricity on a dry night, though it had never been more than a minuscule pull. That is, until tonight.
God, how he’d had felt the pull. It was as if Greg’s body had been a massive magnet and Danny had been an iron filing. How easy it would have been to let go, lose himself and get to feel her arms, the warmth of those legs, the scant weight of her breasts in his palms.
But it would have been death – worse than death – for he knew with absolute certainty Greg would not be allowed to stay in her life. No matter what she thought tonight while she was dizzy with his kisses, she would have tired of the fool, and then where would Danny be? Imprisoned in a dumbass. Sentenced to watch her come and go, knowing he’d never be anything to her. Real death would be easier. Real death had been easier.
Danny felt an uneasy prickle and turned.
A late-model Lexus pulled up to a stop. A man in a Burberry trench sat behind the wheel, talking animatedly on the phone. He was fortyish and attractive with sandy hair cut closely enough to reveal the first signs of a lengthening forehead. He wore a red print tie Danny would have picked for himself and, when he laughed, he fingered the knot.
The man scanned the front of the building as he talked, counting the floors with his eyes as he made responsive nods to whoever was at the other end of the call. It wasn’t the man’s interest in the building that had triggered Danny’s unease, though. It was the overriding sense that he represented a threat. Not a physical threat. The man didn’t look dangerous. Something else. Something that rattled Danny more deeply.
When the man finally stowed the phone and exited the car, Danny stepped into the shadows – unnecessarily, he realized, but old habits die hard. The man approached the building with interest, taking in every detail. A muffled ring broke the night’s silence. The man pulled the phone out of his pocket, looked at the display and broke into a smile.
“Don’t tell me,” he said, laughing. “You’ve changed your mind.” He listened for a moment, grinning. “It’s been almost a whole minute since you agreed. For all I know, that’s all it takes for Julie Wilson to get cold feet.” He laughed. “Right. So we’re on for Saturday at seven. I’ll see you there. I’ll be the slightly balding man clutching a lottery ticket because that day is obviously his lucky day.” He laughed again, said goodbye more formally and exited the call.
Julie, eh?
Danny didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
Cass wrapped her fingers around Greg’s wrists and slowly pushed him away.
“I don’t think so.” She gathered her blouse and, with some effort, smiled apologetically. She felt like a fool and rightfully so.
“You want me to stop?” Greg looked like a kid who’d just lost at checkers to his four-year-old sister.
“’Fraid so.” She slipped the silk over her head and unseated herself from his lap.
“But—”
“And as long as we’re skipping dessert, as it were, I hope you don’t mind if we just skip dinner, too.”
He got to his feet, dazed. “What happened?”
She sighed. “It’s nothing personal, Greg. Really. You seem nice enough. I’m just . . . not ready.”
“Sometimes it takes a while for women to get ready. Do you have any tequila?”
She opened the door. “I do,” she said, righting the coat rack and handing him his jacket. “And I promise I will have some just as soon as you go.”
He exited reluctantly, leaving Cass feeling both used and a user.
That, she thought guiltily, was a failed experiment – that is, unless testing my aversion to airheads was the idea.
For the first time since she’d moved in, the apartment felt empty.
“Danny?” she called tentatively. “Danny?”
Diverted by a psychic tug, like the feeling of the sun’s rays on a cloudy day, Danny turned, expecting to see Cass. Instead, Greg stalked out of the apartment building, scowling, and made his way to the street.
Another tug and Danny let himself go into the drift, finding himself whisked upward and back into Cass’s living room.
She was dressed again – thank God – and her face changed to a fretful smile the instant she saw him.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “That was terrible.”
“Well, it sort of depends on your perspective. Perhaps if you’d turned just a little.” He had hoped for a laugh, but abandoned the effort when he saw the tears forming in her eyes.
“C’mon, Cass,” he said gently. “Forget it.” He reached to comfort her, but his arms went through her like fog through fog. God, he was useless.
She swiped at her eyes. “I guess we should chalk it up to idiocy.”
“His?”
She laughed despite herself. “I wish.”
“Hey, it played a part.”
Danny held out his hands, and she placed hers on top, letting them hover just over where normal touch would occur. He could feel her body heat.
“What does it feel like to you?” he asked.
“A sort of thickness in the air. Like a cloud, I guess. Not that I’ve ever felt one. And warm. A sunny cloud.”
“I like that.” He smiled.
“What would it be like, do you think, if we kissed?”
He almost stepped back, the ache of shame at his inability to give her what she wanted as painful as a blow, but managed to stand his ground. “Not much to talk about, I’m afraid.”
“Let me be the judge.”
He stood still, letting her position herself with her hands on his shoulders and her body so close he could feel his own body heat surge.
“I just go through you,” she said, moving a little closer and watching her elbows sink into his mist.
“You do.” Eyes shut, he allowed himself to remember what it was like, shuddering with the rawness of the feeling.
She lifted her mouth to his.
Her lips were there, just beyond the border of his senses. If he let himself, he could feel the life in them. He bent. His lips burned with the closeness, and the
rest of his body with desire. She was everywhere around him yet untouchable, unknowable, unpossessable.
When she pulled away, he felt as if he’d been unplugged. Could he even summon the strength to move? She looked so beautiful, so full of joy.
“I’m ready,” he said. “To go. Permanently.”
“What?” she cried, immediately on the alert. “No. Why? Because of the kiss?”
“No. Not at all. It was wonderful. Truly.”
Her eyes turned clear. “But?”
“It wasn’t enough.”
She tried to argue but he could see she came up empty.
“That doesn’t mean you have to leave,” she said, finally.
“Doesn’t it?”
“No. Who would I learn about hockey from? A girl’s life shouldn’t be only Masterpiece Theatre and cooking shows.”
He smiled. “I thought I annoyed you.”
“You do. But I think I can smooth out the rough edges.”
He wouldn’t mind losing his edges if it meant he could smell that hypnotizing mixture of pears and spice for the rest of his life. But there was still that ache. “Let me think about it—”
He was interrupted by the buzzer, whose unholy rattle filled the apartment until she pressed the speaker button.
“Yes?”
“Hey.”
It was the voice of the man from outside, and that “hey” had carried with it a lifetime’s worth of intimacy. Danny felt nauseous. It had to be her ex-husband. If Danny hadn’t recognized the relationship in the man’s tone, he would have in Cass’s body language, which showed a tense yearning Danny experienced almost as a shove.
“What are you doing here?” She gave Danny a fleeting, apologetic glance that made him want to grab the man and throw him bodily back in his Lexus.
“I got your note. That was really nice. Can I come up?”
Come up? The man who’d just finalized plans for a rendezvous with Julie?
Danny almost left, but the worried flush on Cass’s face kept him anchored in place.
“Yeah, sure. I mean, I guess.” She pressed the buzzer then looked at Danny with obvious anxiety. It was like one word from this guy had taken her self-possession and scrambled it like a raw egg.
“I’m going to go,” Danny said.
He didn’t wait for an answer. He let himself disappear into invisibility and slipped into the hall, but when he saw the man saunter into the apartment, he couldn’t help but follow.
“Brian,” she said.
Danny could feel her turmoil. It hung in the room like a storm only he could see, and it made his own stomach roil.
“You look great,” Brian said. “Of course, you always look great.”
Unlike Greg, Brian’s words had the ring of honesty to them. That was something, at least.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I came because of the note.”
Flustered, she brushed a spot of dirt off the pot of flowers on the table. Danny noticed she had already taken away Greg’s place setting.
“Yeah, that was probably a mistake.”
“Why?” Brian tossed his coat over the back of the couch as if he were already certain he would be staying. “You just said you want to be friends. I do, too.”
Danny could feel the layers of protection Cass had built up over the last year torn from her body. The storm was raging, blowing her this way and that, even though she stood perfectly still.
Brian held out his hand. Danny knew if she touched it, even once, everything she’d worked for would be gone. The visions flew through his head at a dizzying speed. A shared dinner. A kiss. The careless seduction. Cass exuberantly happy and then utterly destroyed. He gasped at the last, her tears so despairing.
He’d die before he’d let that happen. He’d die. He’d absolutely . . .
He jerked his gaze to Cass, just beginning to extend her hand. Then he relaxed his hold on this world and was gone.
Cass’s hand came to rest in Brian’s. “This,” she said, nodding to the interlacing of their fingers, “really is a mistake.”
“It’s not, Cass,” Danny said carefully. “I promise you, it’s not.”
Ghost of Blackstone Manor
Donna Fletcher
Amanda Steele paced in front of the large bow window. Where was he? He told her he’d be there by four at the latest. It was ten after and there was no sign of him. It would be dark within the hour and she didn’t want to spend another night alone in the house.
She gazed out at the long driveway, praying a car would come into view, but her prayer went unanswered. The wind suddenly picked up, swirling the autumn leaves across the circular driveway around the three-tier fountain, settling them on the parcel of grass.
Amanda shivered, staring at the gargoyle that sat atop the fountain and spewed water from its mouth in the spring and summer months. By October it sat silent and ever watchful – a guardian of Blackstone Manor.
She smiled, recalling the first time she had seen the house as a child. The three-story stone structure with ivy creeping up along one side, numerous shuttered windows that kept prying eyes from seeing in and a wide veranda where white wood rockers would rock on their own, had frightened and delighted her. She had loved exploring the twenty-odd rooms in the mansion, and though the attic scared the wits out of her, she would gather what courage she could and go explore the many trunks and boxes stored there.
Her grandmother, Sophia Barnes, a renowned Broadway actress, had claimed to have bought Blackstone Manor on a whim, insisting it was the perfect getaway place for the family. Tucked away in upstate New York along with other mansions built in the late nineteenth century, and not far from the quaint village of Meldrick, it was the gathering place for the rich and famous of her grandmother’s day.
Besides, no one had wanted the old place. It had fallen into disrepair, and that – Amanda suspected – was what had drawn her grandmother to Blackstone Manor. Sophia Barnes had felt a kindred spirit with the place. It had still retained a modicum of splendor and character, just like she had. But having grown old – a death toll for a Broadway star where parts for older women were few, if any, even with several Tony Awards to her credit – she had found herself no longer relevant to her profession.
So she worked on restoring the mansion, and when it was completed, she never left the place. She insisted it needed her as much as she needed it, and so she threw fabulous parties for friends and relatives and held family gatherings that everyone loved to attend.
Amanda loved the house as much as her grandmother did, and so when Sophia passed a couple of months ago no one was surprised to learn that she had left Blackstone Manor, and the money to maintain it, to her granddaughter, Amanda.
Amanda had been thrilled and eager to spend some time there. That was, until two weeks ago when, only a couple of days after arriving, strange things had begun to happen. Doors opened on their own, lights went on and off without being touched, and while she wanted to believe it was her grandmother’s spirit lingering, unable to leave the home she loved, it was what happened the past few nights that had forced her to call Mitch Connell.
The crunch of tires on the stone driveway had her relieved to see a car pulling up in front of the house. She didn’t waste a moment. She ran to the foyer and, thanks to her daily yoga routine, she had no trouble pulling the heavy door open.
She watched Mitch Connell slip out of his car; he was tall, broad-shouldered and ruggedly handsome, with shoulder-length black hair. The few scars on his face proved that he was a man who didn’t shy away from a brawl, and they made him all the more appealing. He was like a warrior of old who wore his scars like badges of courage, and who you could count on to fight to the death when needed. And she needed a warrior right now.
Even his confident swagger told her he was a man used to winning.
“You made it,” she said, extending her hand.
He gripped her hand firmly, then quickly placed his other hand over their clenched ones,
as if to let her know she needn’t worry any longer. “It’s good to finally meet you, Amanda.”
The warmth and strength of his hands turned her skin to gooseflesh and sent a slight shiver racing through her. Though rough, handsome men usually didn’t appeal to her, his touch sparked her interest, but she ignored it. She needed his specialized skills for a more important matter.
“I know how busy and in demand you are, and I so appreciate you seeing to my problem so quickly. I don’t know what I would have done if you—” She froze, trying to deny what she heard behind her, but as the squeak grew ever louder she couldn’t deny it.
The front door was slowly closing on its own.
She couldn’t help but tremble. The door was simply too heavy to move all on its own.
Mitch kept firm hold of her hand while he tucked a secure arm around her waist and yanked her close against his side. He walked forward with determined strides, taking her along with him. When they reached the door, his arm left her waist and his hand shot out, shoving the partially closed door wide open, and entering the house with her close at his side.
That he impressed her was an understatement. Her grandmother had had the door designed from a piece of thick, solid oak. She had joked that no one would be able to shove their way in. Mitch had just proven her wrong.
They stood in the sizeable foyer, Mitch casting a quick glance around, his arm once again wrapped around her waist. She didn’t mind his touch; it eased her worries. It was obvious that he was a man capable of protecting her, though would he be able to protect her from . . . a ghost?
“I don’t know about you but I’m hungry,” he said. “Why don’t you get your coat and we’ll go have a bite to eat in the village.”
The door swung shut with such force that the framed paintings on the gold damask wallpaper quivered.
Amanda nodded and grabbed her red jacket from the hall closet, slipping it on over her grey knit sweater that matched her pencil skirt. She quickly swiped her large black leather purse from the hall table and hurried to open the front door.
