As it should be. Joshua would deal with Draonius discreetly then leave this family in peace.
“Come out, demon,” he commanded. “In the name of the Lord Almighty, leave the mortal.”
The demon had no choice. Unlike with Jade, the woman’s essence was still inside her body. She would be whole again once free from the intruder.
An inky essence seeped up from the woman, peeling away from her aura and coalescing into the core of power that was Draonius in his most basic condition. He was dim with exhaustion and cracked with the effects of facing the physical plane with nary an essence left to protect him. By his sorry state, Joshua could tell he’d been unable to tempt the woman into adultery, which would have no doubt been his goal.
My, my, Joshua, I never thought I’d see you again. Draonius’s voice wavered as the physical plane buffeted him. The wind was meant to protect mortals. Since Joshua was on the side of Almighty God, it felt like no more than a pleasant breeze to him. Been hobnobbing with the holy, have we?
He didn’t deign to respond. The less time he had to look on this pathetic waste of spiritual matter, the better.
Draonius, you are hereby sentenced to execution for failing to adhere to the rules set forth by heavenly decree. He raised his sword of fire.
After all I’ve done for you—
Joshua whipped his sword in an arc and sliced the wretched core of power in half. Draonius shrieked, and then he was no more.
The door to the room opened and Emmett came in. “Wow,” he said as the man by the bed looked up. “They’ve got the AC up full blast in here.”
The men greeted each other with a masculine hug involving several thumps on the back.
Joshua lifted the veil, and shot heavenward, ready for his next commission.
*****
The doorbell rang, and Jade scurried to answer it. Her ride was here at last.
“Hi, Betty,” she said, looking over Emmett’s threshold at her grandmother’s neighbor. “Thanks for the lift.”
Her iron-gray curls were perfectly set around her round, smiling face. “It’s no problem at all. I’m delighted to bring you along to see your grandmother today. This address is right on my way.”
Jade needed to get away from Emmett’s house stat, but the thought of going back to Grandma Nina’s house made her shiver uncontrollably. A visit to the cozy nursing home and her loving grandmother who would hug her and hold her hand and make all this craziness go away was just what the doctor ordered.
“You don’t mind dropping me at home after?” She’d have to face the house sooner or later. She’d prefer later, or never, but since she would be riding shotgun with Betty, her options were limited.
“Of course not, dear. We’re neighbors.” Betty popped the trunk so Jade could toss her carryon inside. While they buckled into the McIntyres’ champagne-colored Buick, Betty nodded at the oversized sweatshirt she was wearing and the insignia on the breast that read Herald and Son Lawn Service. “I see you hit it off with the lawn service.” She was grinning like a fox.
Jade snorted. You have no idea. Apparently, I married the owner while I was demon possessed.
The fact that Betty didn’t ask any questions during the twenty-minute ride to the hospital was almost enough to make her believe there was a God. The second they walked into Grandma Nina’s room, Jade with her guilty sweatshirt and Betty with a bag of fresh snickerdoodles, Jade launched herself at her grandmother.
Grandma Nina’s eyes went huge, and her mouth made a little O. She managed to move her tablet before Jade crushed it between them.
“How are you, Grandma?” She inhaled her grandmother’s scent, baby powder and lipstick, holding tight to the one stable anchor in her life.
“What’s all this?” Grandma Nina said.
Behind her, Betty said, “I’ll be in the waiting room. Come get me when you’re ready to go, dear. Nina, we’ll talk tomorrow.” She left the cookies on a chair and the door snicked shut behind her.
Jade said, “That Betty. She’s all right.”
“She makes good treats,” her grandmother said sagely. “Now what’s this about?” She stroked her hand down Jade’s hair. “You look…interesting.”
“Interesting?” Could be worse.
Her grandmother squinted at her. “You know what you look like?” She didn’t wait for her to answer. “You look like your mother after she gave birth to you.”
“Uh, okay.”
“You know I was with her when you were born?”
She nodded. The pictures were in one of Grandma Nina’s albums. There was one of Grandma Nina back when her hair was naturally auburn with no more than a few streaks of gray, standing by a hospital bassinette and holding the tiny bundle that was her. There was one of her mom, smiling down at her baby self while Grandma Nina sat on the edge of the bed, looking on. There were some of Grandpa Earl. He’d been there, too.
“She was younger than you are now. Just a child.” Grandma Nina shook her head sadly.
Jade settled in for a story, snuggling beside her grandmother on the bed. She’d heard the terrible story of how her mother had gotten pregnant at seventeen by a man who had kidnapped her and been caught days later-dear old dad, may he rot in jail-but she hadn’t heard many details about the day she was born.
“Only eighteen when she had you,” Grandma Nina was saying. “Young, strong, headstrong. But no amount of youth and determination is a match for labor and delivery. Having a baby knocks the stuffing out of the heartiest of us, and your mother was no exception. She was so tired. So weak. She had those dark circles under her eyes, like you’ve got now.”
Her grandmother’s gentle hand touched her cheek, near the bruise that was almost completely faded now.
“It’s different, the exhaustion you feel after your body’s been put through the wringer of childbirth.” She scrutinized Jade while she talked.
She tried not to squirm. Was her grandmother saying she looked like she’d been through something as major as childbirth? Maybe that wasn’t far off. She felt a lot better now, but when she’d first come to in Emmett’s arms, she’d been a wreck on every level.
Was she actually believing this? Could Emmett have been telling the truth?
“But she was still beautiful, you know.” Her grandmother’s voice was as tender as her gaze. “Tired as she was, she was still radiant. You know why, honey?”
Jade shook her head.
“She was in love.”
She fiddled with the drawstring on the sweatshirt’s hood.
“When she looked down at you in her arms, it didn’t matter how you came to her or how hard it was bringing you into the world. All that mattered was you were hers. You got that look to you, honey. Like you’ve been put through the wringer, but you came through with your eyes on someone very special.”
Tears brimmed in her eyes. She wouldn’t let them fall. She shook her head. “It’s not like that, Grandma. I just had a bad night. That’s all.”
Grandma Nina raised one penciled eyebrow. She started to say something, but stopped when Jade’s phone rang. “Go on. Get it. I imagine it’s the man whose clothes you got on.”
Jade exchanged a smirk with her and checked the display. It was, in fact, Emmett. She sent the call to voicemail. Then she felt guilty. She hoped his sister was okay.
What kind of girlfriend was she if she refused to be there for him while he had a family emergency going on? But she wasn’t just a girlfriend anymore, was she?
“You look mad,” Grandma Nina said. “Was that the donkey fart that hit you?”
“No. It was my husband.”
A pause. “Bad night, indeed.”
“It’s a long story, Grandma.”
“Is it one you want to tell?”
Her phone alerted her to a text message. She peeked at it.
Thinking of you. Visiting with Rob. Lisa is going to be okay. Can’t wait to get back to you, but might be a little while. I’ll bring you lunch.
Her
heart smiled. Her face scowled. She shook her head to her grandmother’s question. Pocketing her phone, she reclined in the bed, enjoying being close to Grandma Nina. She felt safe here. “Why did you marry Grandpa?”
Her grandmother smiled. She was so beautiful. It was awesome to see her starting to look like herself again. The blood thinners and rest were agreeing with her.
“People will tell you things like, ‘I just knew he was the one’ or ‘the first time he smiled at me, I knew I’d love him the rest of my life.’ But it wasn’t like that for me.” Grandma Nina folded her hands in her lap. Her plain gold wedding ring was just where it had always been even though Grandpa Earl had been gone for eleven years. “Your grandfather and I had a slow courtship. We were both older, you know. Both wary of jumping in too fast. I don’t know if I ever told you, I was married before. Divorced three years later.”
“Wow. I didn’t know that.” It was a day for surprises.
“You know that old saying ‘fools rush in?’”
Jade shook her head. “I can guess what it means, though.”
“Means when you rush into something-like a marriage-you might find yourself wishing you hadn’t, feeling a fool. It isn’t always true, honey. There is such a thing as ‘love at first sight,’ but I’ve never experienced it. Thought I had. But I was wrong. I was that fool that expression warns about. I was nineteen. One look at a cute ass in a pair of tight Navy whites, and I was done for.”
“Grandma!”
“What? I remember what it was like, being young and horny all the time.”
“TMI.” She clapped her hands over her ears but only for a second. She couldn’t help laughing at her grandmother’s mischievous wink.
“Anyway, I learned my lesson. Your grandfather and I took our time. We were friends first. Our attraction bloomed slowly. It wasn’t like fireworks or being hit over the head with a mallet or any of those things people say about love. It was a quieter love. A steady love.” She took Jade’s hand in her warm dry grasp. “I married your grandfather because I knew he’d always be there for me. I knew he was a good man. Nothing else mattered but that. Things weren’t always perfect, of course, but I could always go back to that certainty. Honey, you find a man who’s good to the core, you grab on and don’t let go.” She leaned back to study Jade’s face. “Or have you already done that?”
Jade sighed. She was so tired and so confused. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“How do you not know something like that? Did you meet someone or didn’t you? What on Earth is going on with you?”
“I think I got married last night,” she blurted. “But I don’t remember it. And I don’t want it.”
Her grandmother frowned. “I thought I was done dealing with all that drinking and drug drama when your mother passed.”
“I wasn’t drunk or high. I was-” possessed. “Unconscious.”
“You realize you’re not making any sense, honey?” Her grandmother was looking at her like she’d gone off the deep end. “And you look so tired. Why don’t you go home and take a nap?”
There was no way she’d fall asleep in that house any time soon. “I don’t want to go to the house.” Partly because she was afraid of it, partly because Emmett might come looking for her there. She wasn’t ready to face him. But she couldn’t stay here, either. Betty would have to go home eventually.
“Well, what do you want? What is your heart telling you?”
That was easy. “To run away.”
“So, what are you doing here?”
She sat up straight. “Hey, you’re supposed to tell me to grow up and face my problems, not of run from them.”
“You should face them, honey, but look at you. You’re exhausted. You’re stressed. I’ve seen you tired before, and I know whatever’s going on with you is bigger and badder than anything you’ve faced before. You’ve been up here for almost two weeks, and all your friends are down in Boston. Why don’t you get yourself a coffee and go for a drive? Clear your head. Visit with your friends. Have some fun. Then come back in a few days and face what’s got you all knotted up.”
Her grandmother was so wise.
Half an hour later, Betty deposited her in front of her grandmother’s house. Everything looked in order. Her Jetta sat in the driveway, the sun reflecting off the rear window. Lacy shadow cast by the big purple maple danced across her front lawn, which was neatly trimmed, but yellow from heat and neglect.
She got out of Betty’s Buick and eyed the house.
“Have a wonderful afternoon,” Betty said.
“You too. Thanks for the ride.”
“Any time.” Betty shuttled her Buick into her driveway, and Jade lost sight of it behind the hedges.
She was alone with her grandmother’s house. She did not want to go inside, did not want to face a kitchen covered in shards of glass and filled with memories of shadows taking form and attacking Emmett.
“No guts, no glory.” She hustled up the walk to get it over with as quickly as possible.
Her carryon bag rumbled on the bricks behind her. She dragged it up the two stairs to the sun porch. Forcing herself not to pause, she slipped the key in the lock and worked the thumb latch on the front door.
There really had been a demon in her house. She’d seen it for herself. Was it so hard to believe she’d been possessed and had married her sexy church boy to save herself?
Yes, it was. Emmett claimed he proposed and she said yes, but she couldn’t see herself agreeing to it for the reason Emmett gave her this morning, not even if her life was at stake. Marry for love, her mother used to tell her and Jilly, only for love. Her mother had a lot of faults, but Jade had always looked up to her for staying single. She’d dated a lot of losers, but she’d never committed to any of them. She’d taken care of herself and her girls. It hadn’t been a glamorous life by any stretch of the imagination, but they’d had food, shelter, and money for school supplies. They’d gone to the dentist and doctor whenever necessary. Her mother had seen to all the important things, and she’d done it without handouts. In fact, she’d often extend their food and shelter to whatever non-marriagable idiot she happened to be seeing at any given time.
Her mother hadn’t needed marriage, and Jade had learned young it was better to keep a legal distance from men. You never knew which ones you might need to get a restraining order against. Easier to keep separate names and checking accounts. Easier to run when things went south.
No, she wouldn’t have married for anything but love. She would have let a demon take her soul before offering it up to a man she hardly knew.
When she shouldered into the front hall, the healing scabs on her chest and cheek prickled with the memory of hot glass shards. Her throat tightened as she remembered Mr. Shadow slinking along her walls.
Why did she have a strange certainty she would never see him again? Why did that bother her?
Get a grip. Whatever was going on here is over. At least according to Nick. But could he be trusted? He was on the crazy boat with Emmett. Apparently, so was Chiboza.
She’d moved to Nutsville, USA. A trip to Boston had never sounded so good.
After a bracing breath, she jogged up the stairs, leaving the carryon in the front hall. She couldn’t face unpacking it right now. She just wanted to grab a change of clothes and get out of the house. Besides, Maxi was expecting her, and she would have everything Jade might need.
No ghosts slid across the walls and no cold spots chilled her to the bone as she grabbed her phone charger and some clean underwear from the turret bedroom. Settling into a sense of normalcy, she detoured into the bathroom to take care of necessities. No shower, though. No way did she feel comfortable enough to draw a curtain between her and the rest of the house. She’d clean up at Maxi’s when she got there.
As she washed her hands, she glanced at her face in the mirror and noted the dark circles her grandmother had pointed out. She looked like hell. While she debated digging through her carryon downstairs for the
makeup she’d packed, she couldn’t help remembering the startled face of a young man peering back at her as she got ready for her date with Emmett last Friday. She had the strangest feeling there was something important she had forgotten, and it had to do with that young man.
Whatever. It had been a strange day. She ignored any feelings she couldn’t explain and headed downstairs, bypassing her carryon. She just wanted out of the house, out of Dover.
While locking up, her phone buzzed in her sweatshirt pocket, making her jump. The display said it was Emmett. She wanted to dodge him again, but eager as she was to get back to her familiar stomping grounds, she couldn’t bear to give him anything to worry about while his sister was hurt. She picked up.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he said, and there was a smile in his voice.
She smiled, too, against her better judgment. “How’s your sister?”
“Sleeping. Rob says all the tests they did show she’s healing well and doesn’t have a concussion or anything.”
“That’s great.” It was also great to hear his voice, maybe a little too great. Isn’t this how brainwashing worked? One minute you’re determined to leave the cult. Then, the leader smiles at you and suddenly you’re holding out your cup for seconds on the Kool-Aid.
No Kool-Aid for me, thanks.
Restacking the bricks in her emotional barrier, she said, “So, she’ll be all right?”
“Yeah. Looks like it. We’re all hoping she’ll be back to her old self when she wakes up. How are you? Resting up?”
“Sure, yeah. I feel fine.”
“Good.” He sighed, and the sound tripped her heart with longing.
More bricks. More mortar. Wall it up. Keep those feelings out.
“I’ve got so much to talk to you about,” he said. “But I think I’m going to have to crash when I get home.”
Guilt pricked at her. He’d stayed up all night, and by skipping town she would probably make it hard for him to catch up on his rest today.
He stayed up all night taking care of me. Because I had a demon in me…or a minion. Every time she thought about it the horror sank in a little deeper and made her feel a little sicker. Why don’t I remember?
Passionate Kisses 2 Boxed Set: Love in Bloom Page 167
