Charon's Crossing (A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel)

by Sandra Marton

  She'd said the same thing when he'd wanted to drive her home instead of letting her take a taxi, and then again when he'd offered to take her to the airport this morning. She'd even turned down the idea of having breakfast together.

  "I won't have time," she'd said.

  And he'd accepted that—until half an hour ago, when he was in the middle of his morning run through Central Park. He'd stopped dead in his tracks and said, to the astonishment of a drunk sleeping it off near the statue of Alice in Wonderland, "To hell with being practical!"

  Jason took a deep breath. So now here he was, standing at Kathryn's door, as nervous as a kid on his first date.

  Would she be happy to see him, or wouldn't she?

  He glanced at the paper sack he was holding. Two large coffees, black. Two whole-wheat donuts. Two buttered bagels, and a handful of Sweet and Low packets. He began to smile.

  It might not be sensible, but it was breakfast.

  Even Kathryn would have to agree to that.

  * * *

  The shrill sound of the doorbell pierced the tattoo of the shower like the wail of a wounded animal. Kathryn spun away from the mirror and stared out the bathroom door. The hallway seemed to stretch into a shadowed infinity.

  But the bell bleated again and the hallway was exactly what it had always been, a short, narrow corridor in desperate need of new carpeting.

  Kathryn blew out her breath, snatched her robe from the door, and thrust her arms into the sleeves.

  "May all the calories in the fried dumplings go straight to my hips if I ever eat Chinese food after nine o'clock again," she muttered as she flew down the hall.

  "You're early," she said through the door in a no-nonsense tone, before the cabbie could lean on the bell again. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait downstairs. I told the dispatcher to send a cab at eight-thirty, and—"

  "Would you really send a poor man back out into the cold, lady, when he's here to deliver breakfast for two?"

  Kathryn blinked in surprise.

  "Jason?"

  "Yup—unless that cab company offers room service."

  She smiled as she undid the locks and bolts that were the price of living in a big city.

  "Jason, what on earth are you doing here?" she said as she flung the door open.

  "I decided nobody should have to depend on an airline for breakfast." He held out the Mister Donut bag as he stepped into the entry hall. "So I stopped at one of New York's most elegant patisseries, picked up some croissants and cafe for two, grabbed a taxi, and—"

  Kathryn snatched the bag out of his hands, tossed it on a table, and threw her arms around him.

  "Oh," she said happily, "what a nice surprise!"

  Jason stood there for a moment, his expression a combination of delight and astonishment, and then his arms closed around her.

  Oh yes, he thought, it certainly was a nice surprise. In his heart, he'd half expected she might open the door, see him standing there with a silly grin and the even sillier Mister Donut bag, and blurt out that agreeing to marry him last night had all been a huge mistake.

  Now, with her warm and soft in his arms, he felt his doubts fall away.

  Kathryn was really happy to see him this morning. And she was different somehow, not just in looks, although that was part of it. She was wearing a flannel robe, her bare toes were peeping out from under the hem, and her hair was hanging loose and shiny down her back. It was all a far cry from her usual, businesslike self.

  But for all her sexy, sweet dishevelment, it was her vulnerability that was making his head spin. She needed him, he thought in amazement. Kathryn needed him. She was clinging to him, and that was something she had never done before.

  It was something he'd dreamed of, but the reality of it was a little frightening.

  "Hey." He drew back a step and looked into her eyes. "Are you okay?"

  Kathryn thought of the dream, of its intensity, of how even the hallway had looked so frightening just as the doorbell rang. She laughed, shut her eyes and leaned her forehead against Jason's chin.

  "I'm fine. But I've decided I'm never going to eat Chinese food again."

  He laughed, too. "I knew it," he said lightly. "Now the woman's going to claim she was under the influence of foreign agents when she agreed to marry me."

  She smiled. "I really did do that, didn't I?"

  "Yup, you did." His voice took on a good-humored gruffness. "And I'm telling you right now, lady, it's too late to change your mind."

  Kathryn drew back and looked at him, taking in the handsome, almost boyish face with its open, pleasant expression. She gave a little shake of her head and sighed.

  "I really am glad you came by this morning. Just seeing you makes me feel better. I had such an awful night. One bad dream after another."

  His arms tightened around her. "It's this rotten trip. I wish you'd put it off and wait until I can go to Elizabeth Island with you."

  Kathryn burrowed closer to him. He smelled of cold air, of New York traffic, even faintly of male sweat, but She didn't mind. They were good smells, down to earth and real, and reality was what she needed right now.

  "We've been all through this," she said gently. "I have to go now. You understand."

  "Yeah." He puffed out his breath and rested his chin on the top of Kathryn's head. "Well," he said with a little laugh, "I guess there's something to be said for marrying a woman whose father leaves her a Caribbean estate."

  Kathryn leaned back in his arms. "We'd better hope it's an estate and not a shanty on the beach or it'll cost me more to get rid of it than it's worth."

  "He must have been quite a character, your old man. I mean, who leaves anybody an estate?"

  "Don't exaggerate," she said with a teasing grin. "It's only a mansion, remember?"

  "Inherited from the British side of the family."

  "Veddy, veddy British."

  Jason laughed. "Think how much easier it would be if he'd left you a string of pearls."

  They smiled at each other.

  "I really wish I could go with you," Jason said softly.

  "I know. But I'll be back before you know it."

  He sighed. "Yeah."

  "I'm so glad you decided to come by this morning. This really was such a nice surprise."

  "I thought so, too," he said smugly. "Do I get a kiss as a reward?"

  "Well, I don't know. A gold star, maybe..."

  Smiling, he lifted her face to his. "A kiss," he whispered, and his mouth closed on hers.

  His kiss was warm and tender. Kathryn sighed and her arms crept around his neck. It was nice to be kissed this way. No, it was better than nice. It was sweet. It was gentle...

  It was nothing like the way the man in the dream had kissed her. His kisses had demanded surrender. Give yourself to me, they'd said. And she'd wanted to, oh yes, she'd wanted to...

  Kathryn twisted her face away from Jason's.

  "Kathryn?" He clasped her chin in his hand, gently urged her to look at him. His brown eyes were dark with concern. "There's something wrong, isn't there?"

  Tell him, she thought. Tell him about the dream. Bring it out of the darkness and into the open so you can laugh about it together.

  Laugh? How could they laugh at something that would embarrass them both? How could she ever tell him that a man in a dream had turned her on more than the man in her arms ever had?

  The thought was so shabby, so disloyal, that she hated herself for even thinking it. She reached up, clasped Jason's face between her palms, and dragged his mouth to hers for another kiss. Then she slid her hands down his shoulders to his forearms.

  "It's the shower. I just remembered that I left it running all this time."

  "The shower!" Jason burst out laughing. "I'm kissing you, and you're thinking of the shower?"

  "I dare you to say something like that next summer, when the city's in the middle of a drought," she said, smiling as she stepped out of his embrace. "Look, why don't you heat up our gourmet bre
akfast while I shower and dress?"

  Jason touched his finger to the tip of her nose. "I could do that. Or I could help you scrub your back."

  Kathryn grinned. "Not in that shower, you couldn't." She kissed him lightly on the mouth. "I'll only be a minute."

  Jason watched as she hurried down the hall. Then he sighed, picked up the paper sack and headed for the kitchen. He took the two coffee containers from the bag, popped off the lids and put the containers into the microwave. Then he dumped the bagels and donuts on a plate, put that into the oven, too, and punched in the right settings.

  The oven began to hum and he leaned back against the counter.

  Kathryn was right. She'd be back from the Caribbean before he knew it and they could begin planning their future.

  Then, why did he have this feeling of unease?

  Chapter 2

  Amos Carter was not a vain man but he was definitely an honest one.

  That was why he couldn't pretend that talent and ability were the reasons he was Elizabeth Island's busiest attorney.

  The facts were simple. Amos had the island's most active law practice because he had its only law practice.

  If a storm wrecked your fishing boat and the insurance company gave you a hard time collecting your money, if you quarreled with your neighbor over whose land his pigs were destroying, you either went to Amos or you went to another island. And that wasn't easy, considering that Elizabeth Island was tucked away from the tourist track, many miles to the west of Martinique, St. Lucia, and the other Windward Islands of the Caribbean.

  Amos had come here a dozen years ago, ready for peaceful retirement after forty years of practicing law in the Caymans. He bought a house in the dunes above a beach, and a thirty foot gaff-rigged catboat to play around in, and he spurned all efforts at hospitality.

  When the first neighbor had appeared at his door in search of legal advice, Amos had not been subtle.

  "I am no longer prostituting myself in the name of justice," he'd said, his voice plummy with the upper-class elegance of his British public school training.

  But the man persisted. The case had a flavor and nuance that piqued Amos's curiosity. He became interested. A few days later, he'd found himself once again practicing law.

  Now, as he paced impatiently alongside the narrow strip of crushed pink shell that was Elizabeth Island's pitiful excuse for an airport, he berated himself for having let that neighbor in the door ten years before.

  If he hadn't, he'd be out in his sailboat right now, sipping a cold lager, his well-thumbed copy of Cicero in his lap, the prospect of a dinner of freshly caught flying fish looming pleasantly ahead.

  Instead, he was sweating out here in the hot sun, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the twice-weekly plane from Grenada which was already almost an hour late.

  Amos scowled, slipped off his wide-brimmed Panama hat and used it to fan his glistening black face. Not that that was unusual. The plane was always late. In truth, it was the fact that he was here at all that had him so irritated.

  He was waiting for a woman named Kathryn Russell. He'd never set eyes on her, never had more than a few telephone conversations with her, but he knew, without question, that she was going to be one monumental pain in the ass for the next seven days.

  Amos's scowl deepened as he snapped a spotless white linen handkerchief from the breast pocket of his white linen suit and mopped it across his bald head.

  It was bad enough he'd gone back to the profession that had sent him scurrying from the distasteful company of humans in the first place. That he'd taken on a client as eccentric as Trevor Russell was even worse, but Russell had come to him with what had seemed the simplest of requests.

  "I'm at that age where I suppose I should have a will, Mr. Carter," he'd said.

  Amos, taking a look at the face made ruddy by too much sun, whiskey and women, had silently agreed.

  He hadn't liked Russell very much. The man's cavalier, devil-may-care attitude had been almost personally offensive to someone who believed in responsibility, hard work and commitment.

  A month after Amos had drawn up the will, Russell had died in a spectacular car crash in Lisbon. Amos figured it had probably been more in keeping with the sort of life the man had led than beachcombing on an all but forgotten Caribbean island.

  It had fallen to Amos, as executor, to convey the news of Trevor Russell's bequest to his sole heir, his daughter, Kathryn.

  It had been his experience that talk of wills and inheritances following the death of a loved one was usually greeted with choked sobs. Amos was not a sentimental man himself but that was not to say he didn't understand emotion. Anticipating the shock and grief the loss of her father would bring, he'd telephoned the girl, prepared to offer soothing words of condolence and assistance.

  But Kathryn Russell hadn't wanted either. She'd wanted answers about the property she'd inherited. What was it worth? And how quickly could she sell it?

  Amos had tried to be diplomatic. Elizabeth Island was not what one would call a tourist mecca. It was too far off the holiday path. And, though its beauty was spectacular, its amenities were few.

  As for Charon's Crossing itself—the kindest way to describe the house was to say it needed work.

  Amos hemmed and hedged and finally said that the house's value was dependent on a variety of factors, beginning with its condition.

  "I am afraid, Miss Russell," he'd said politely, "that Charon's Crossing requires repairs before we can assess its worth."

  "I see," she'd said, but he felt certain she didn't.

  With that in mind, Amos had offered to determine the cost of making necessary repairs to the house. Russell's daughter had responded in a way that still had him bristling.

  "Thank you, Mr. Carter," she'd said, "but I prefer to do that myself."

  What she'd really meant was that she could not entrust something so important to a stranger but Amos did not consider himself a stranger. He was her father's executor.

  The only thing that offended him more than dealing with a client who did not trust his honesty or his competency was dealing with a woman.

  The world had changed. It was filled, he knew, with women who insisted on being treated like men, but Amos was of the old school. Attorneys advised the female of the species, they did not take orders from them.

  Kathryn Russell, as subsequent phone conversations had proved, was superb at giving orders.

  He was to draw up a list of local contractors.

  He was to draw up a list of local real estate agents.

  He was to arrange to have the house cleaned in anticipation of her arrival.

  He was to arrange for her to have use of a rental car.

  He was to have a taxi meet her plane.

  And he was to understand that she had only a week to spare.

  Amos scowled, pulled out his handkerchief, and mopped his head again.

  Kathryn Russell was as ignorant as she was presumptuous.

  Contractors? There was a man in town who had a truck, a few pieces of equipment, and a brother-in-law who was his sometime crew. Realtors? There was even one of those, too. Olive Potter had been selling houses on Elizabeth Island for more years than anyone could remember.

  One house a year, at least. That was about the market turnover.

  A taxi, to meet her? The only taxi on the island was sitting where it had been sitting for as long as he could remember, down on a little back road near the beach and slowly turning to rust.

  As for the Russell woman's assumption that you could get anything done in seven days in this part of the world... that was almost enough to make him laugh.

  Amos had thought of telling her so. He also thought of telling her other things, that there were disquieting stories of some dark force that roamed the huge, empty rooms of the house she'd inherited.

  But each talk with Trevor Russell's daughter only went further to convince him that she would take nothing he said at face value.

  And so
he had told her nothing. Let her learn the truth for herself, that the island was a sleepy backwater, that Charon's Crossing was a gloomy ruin, and that she'd be lucky if she could sell it for a fraction of what she obviously thought it was worth.

  His duty was to implement the terms of Trevor Russell's will, nothing more.

  And if, in the process, there was a certain pleasure in watching the imperious Miss Russell brought to heel, well, so be it.

  Childish squeals interrupted Amos's thoughts. He looked around and saw a rag-tag band of children racing towards him in hot pursuit of a pair of wild-eyed goats.

  Amos danced back sharply but not quickly enough to keep one of the goats from brushing his leg as it bounded past. He glared at the fleeing animal and at the shrieking children, who looked almost as untamed and unkempt as their prey.

  Angrily, he whisked his hand across the impeccable crease in his white trousers, brushing away goat hair and something he hoped was only dust.

  "Miserable little creatures," he muttered. And, just at that moment, he heard the approaching drone of an airplane.

  Amos looked up. Finally, there it was, the ancient red and white Cessna 402 that was Elizabeth Island's solitary acceptance of the fast pace of the modern world.

  The plane dipped woozily towards the pink airstrip, the wings waggling as it zoomed over the heads of the children and the goats.

  The children laughed and Amos could only assume the pilot was laughing, too. As far as he could tell after ten years here, only crazies flew this run.

  Amos looked at the plane as it wobbled to a stop.

  Welcome to Elizabeth Island, Miss Russell, he thought.

  For the first time all day, he smiled.

  * * *

  Kathryn peered out the window, saw the ground whooshing towards her, saw a blur of waving children and frantic animals coming closer, and decided her life was about to end.

  She shrank back in her seat, shut her eyes, and did what she'd done most of the trip from Grenada.

  She prayed.

  The flight had been a horror from the minute she'd transferred planes, leaving behind the air-conditioned terminal to search for something called the Out-Island Shuttle.