His tone twisted the word into an obscenity. Kathryn wanted to move towards him, take him in her arms, tell him that—that...
She swallowed hard, then cleared her throat.
"And what about that—that thing in the attic? What is it? And why is it here?"
Matthew frowned. "I told you, that was a dream."
"Now, who's handing out reassurances fit for a twelve-year-old? Come on, Matthew. I know it wasn't a dream. This is my house and that—whatever it was—came after me. I've a right to know what it is."
He sighed and got to his feet. She was right, and he knew it.
"It is Waring," he said in a low voice. "The man I found with Catherine, who killed me even as I killed him."
Kathryn felt her blood turn to ice. "You mean, he's a ghost, too?"
"Nay. Not a ghost. A thing, just as you called him, existing in a place different than this, as I once did."
She sank down in a chair. "I feel as if I've stumbled into a time warp," she said, with a nervous laugh. "I don't understand any of this."
Matthew leaned towards her over the wide oak table, his hands planted firmly on the scarred wood.
"I will tell you what I have surmised," he said. "Waring was an aristocrat, a son of a bitch who despised anyone not of his class. Can you imagine what it must have done to him, to have died on the sword of such as me and for a woman who was little better than a whore?"
"So he's here because he hates you?"
"He is here to avenge himself, if he can break through from where he exists to this place."
The day was hot, the sun bright. Kathryn could hear birds singing outside in the garden. But in here, in the kitchen, the air had taken on a chill as cold as the grave.
"You mean... You mean, he's tried to hurt you?"
Matthew showed his teeth in a chill smile. "To kill me. Yes."
"But how can he do that if you're already—if you're already—"
She couldn't say the word, but Matthew could, and without any sign of emotion.
"If I am already dead?" His shoulders lifted and fell in an eloquent shrug. "I don't know. I can no more explain the laws of the universe now than I could when I was mortal." His eyes darkened. "The only thing I'm certain of is that Waring has grown stronger in the past days."
"Since I came here, you mean."
He hesitated. "Yes."
"Why?"
The word was a whisper on the silence. Matthew shook his head.
"I don't know." He saw the look on her face, the sudden terror in her eyes, and he mentally cursed the table that separated them and kept him from pulling her into his arms. He reached out and took her hand. "Don't be afraid, Kathryn. He will not hurt you. I swear, I will not let it happen."
"I'm not afraid for myself," she said in a tremulous voice. "But if he were to—to..."
She caught her breath. An electric tingle seemed to flash from his fingers to hers.
"Kathryn..."
An acrid stench erupted in the kitchen. Matthew's gaze shot past her, to the stove.
"Hell," he said, and vaulted the table.
Kathryn spun around. The coffee she'd put up was boiling madly and spilling out of the spout. For some insane reason, the sight immobilized her. Matthew grabbed for the pot.
"How do you stop this damned thing?" he said.
"That knob..."
He nodded, shut off the stove, and put the coffee pot on a back burner.
"No damage done," he said, "just a bit of a mess... Kathryn? What is it?"
She shook her head fiercely. Then, with no warning, she gave a hiccupping sob and tears began coursing down her cheeks.
"Sweetheart, don't cry. It's only coffee."
"I know," she said, her voice wobbling, and cried even harder.
Matthew pulled her into his arms and silently called himself every kind of fool. Why had he told her about Waring? It had been stupid of him, and thoughtless. Gently, he held her at arm's length and smiled down into her tear-stained face.
"If you knew how often in my life I've drunk burned coffee, you wouldn't be so upset."
Kathryn wiped the back of her hand across her nose. "Don't try and make me feel better, Matthew. God, that stuff smells like burning rubber!"
"Like burning what?"
Despite herself, and despite the tears that were still escaping down her cheeks, she laughed.
"We're going to have to do something about introducing you to the new world."
"Here." Matthew reached past her and tore a paper towel off the roll hanging over the sink. "This should do," he said holding it to her nose. "Blow."
She did, noisily. "Thank you."
He smiled, his fingers moving lightly across her cheeks, tracing the elegant arch of bone that lay beneath her silken skin.
"You're welcome. And I meant what I said about the coffee. I'm sure it's drinkable."
"Oh sure."
"You forget how long it is since I have had coffee to drink, Kathryn."
He sounded so serious. But when she looked into his eyes, she could see that they were filled with teasing laughter. A giggle broke from her throat, and then another, until she was laughing and crying all at once.
"Oh, Matthew," she said, "I was so furious at you when I drove back here from the airport."
"From what?"
"Never mind that. What I'm trying to tell you is that I'm not angry anymore."
"You're not?"
"No. I just wish I could say something that would make everything better. This must be so awful for you, being trapped inside this miserable house because of something that happened so long ago."
"Are your tears for me, then, you foolish woman?"
"Of course not," she said fiercely. "Why would I cry for a ghost?"
Matthew looked at her face. Her eyes were puffy and the tip of her nose was red. Her hair, which she'd been wearing in a ladylike knot, was coming undone and curling from the heat. There was a dark coffee stain on her white cotton shirt. She looked disheveled and unglamorous, and infinitely more beautiful than he'd ever imagined a woman could look... and he wanted her. He knew it was wrong, straight down into the marrow of his bones. He knew, too, that he could no more keep from wanting her than he could keep from drawing breath.
"There is no need to weep," he said softly. He took her face between his hands and tilted it up to his. "I regret nothing, sweetheart, for whatever has happened, it has brought you to me."
His words brought another glitter of dampness to her eyes. He smiled, looked deep into their shining depths for a long moment, and then, slowly, he lowered his head to hers and kissed her.
Kathryn sighed into his mouth as his lips touched hers. She rose on her toes, her hands clasping his wrists. He had never kissed her this way before, not just with fire and passion but with an almost indescribable tenderness, and she gave herself up to the magic of it.
It was Matthew who broke the kiss. He drew her head to his chest and struggled for self-control.
"And I don't regret coming here," Kathryn whispered, "because if I hadn't come... if I hadn't..."
He stopped her words with another kiss and, as he kissed her, he knew that he should tell her she was wrong, that coming to this damned place had been the worst mistake of her life.
But she was warm and sweet in his arms. A sudden fierce sensation swept through him. For a moment, he didn't know what it was.
And then he did.
What he felt was joy.
Chapter 15
Joy? He felt joy?
What the hell kind of an emotion was that, for a man like him to feel?
He had no right to any emotions, dammit, except perhaps the rage that had drawn him out of the darkness in the first place.
And he had no right whatsoever to hold this flesh and blood woman in his arms, as he was doing now. Or to want her. Or to exult in the knowledge that she wanted him. Hell, there was no sense being modest about it, she did want him, with the same driving need as his own.
> Well, what was wrong with, that?
Dead though he might be, he had all the bodily urges of a mortal. As for Kathryn... hadn't she told him herself that women of her time weren't troubled by issues of feminine chastity and virtue?
Dammit, it was so simple. All he had to do was kiss her again, lift her into his arms and carry her up the stairs to the bedroom.
It didn't matter that he had no right to her, that she was human and he was whatever in hell he was; that she was betrothed to another man. Nothing mattered, but this driving need to have her.
And, after he'd had her, then what? She would leave the island and he would be alone again, and the loneliness would be more desperate than ever. Images of Kathryn, of a woman and a life he could never have, would torment his mind and heart for the rest of eternity.
Never mind all that, you scurvy bastard. What of her? Doesn't she deserve more than being bedded by the likes of you?
Kathryn stirred in his arms. "Matthew?" she whispered.
He looked into her eyes and he knew, with absolute certainty, what he must do next.
He bent his head, crushed her mouth under his.
"Good-bye, Kathryn," he said.
And he was gone.
* * *
Matthew was gone.
One minute, he'd been holding her in his arms and the next, Kathryn was swaying on her feet, all alone.
At first, she thought it was some kind of joke. A ghostly version of hide-and-seek. But if it was, he'd picked a strange moment for playing the game.
"Matthew?" she said.
There was no answer.
"Matthew, where are you?"
She went from room to room, calling his name.
"This is silly," she said. "I know you're here someplace. Come on out and show yourself."
He didn't.
"Okay," she said, "okay, that's fine."
And it was. She'd asked him to get out, hadn't she?
Yes. But that was before...
Before what? He'd kissed her, but he'd kissed her many times. There'd been nothing different about that kiss except that she'd let her imagination run away with her, let herself think that... that...
Kathryn stood still. There was nothing to think. Not really. She'd gotten carried away, and so had he. It was just a good thing one of them had come to their senses in time, and embarrassing that it had been Matthew and not her.
Maybe it was a good thing he didn't want to show himself.
Maybe it was a very good thing.
Good-bye, Kathryn, indeed.
"Good-bye, Matthew," she said to the silent house, "and good riddance."
* * *
Damn, but she was such a charming, and gracious, female.
Matthew gritted his teeth as he paced the hot, still attic.
Good-bye, and good riddance?
"What a wonderful sentiment, Kathryn," he growled.
He had turned his back on what could have been a night in her bed and this was his thanks? He had given up the chance to undo almost two centuries of celibacy for this?
No good had ever come of pretending to be a gentleman, not in the real world and not in this one.
Kathryn hadn't recognized an act of decency when she'd been confronted with it. She hadn't even maintained an ongoing interest in finding out what had become of him. She'd spent, what, twenty minutes searching for him? Then she'd written him off the way a banker might write off a bad loan.
"Hell," Matthew growled, "bloody hell."
If that was what a man got for doing the right thing, he was just as glad he hadn't wasted his energies doing the right thing too many times during his life.
* * *
By the time Elvira arrived Monday morning, Kathryn was up to her elbows in Lysol and hot water, scrubbing down the old bricks on the terrace with a vengeance.
Elvira raised her eyebrows. "Hot day for that kind of thing, don't you think?"
Kathryn sat back on her heels. Her shirt and shorts were already stuck to her skin, her hair was damp and sweat was streaming into her eyes.
"Is it?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I hadn't noticed."
Elvira's brows lifted another millimeter. Oh my. Kathryn Russell was angry as a hornet. Not that Elvira was particularly surprised. Everybody from one end of the island to the other knew that Kathryn's young man had flown in Friday night and flown out again not twelve hours later, jammed into the mail plane like a sack of parcels.
Sam Patterson, who ran the airstrip, had joked about it.
"Might call it a case of returned male," he'd said.
Nobody knew exactly what had happened but here was Kathryn, on a morning where the temperature was already up to ninety and still climbing, scrubbing down the terrace with a look on her face that said, go on, just try knocking this chip off my shoulder and see what happens.
Elvira bit her lip to keep from smiling. Even after forty-something years of marriage, there were still times Hiram got her dander up so far that only cleaning her already clean house from top to bottom would get it down again.
She took the hatpin from her straw boater, lifted the hat from her head, and stabbed the pin through the crown.
"Just let me change into my housedress," she said calmly, "and I'll join you."
* * *
By midafternoon, the old bricks were as clean as they were ever going to get.
And a good thing, too. Kathryn dumped her scrub brush into her bucket and wiped the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead.
The sun had long since passed its zenith but it was still hot and airless. Not a breath stirred the palm trees.
"I'm finished," she called to Elvira, who'd been working on the opposite side of the terrace.
Elvira sat back on her heels.
"So am I." A smile split her dark face. "Hope I don't look as bad as you do, Kathryn."
Kathryn laughed. "I hope you don't feel as bad, either." She groaned, put her hands in the small of her back, and staggered to her feet. "I have aches where I never knew I had muscles! How about you?"
Elvira grinned and rose as lithely as a dancer. "Raise enough children, you find out about all your muscles early on. I'll clean up. You go on, take yourself a nice bath, then sit down with a cup of tea and you'll feel lots better."
"No, that's okay. I'll clean up with you and then head for the tub—assuming the water heater cooperates, that is."
Both women sighed with pleasure as they stepped into the comparative coolness of the house.
"Heater givin' you trouble?" Elvira asked.
"All the time. It's probably going to be number one on Hiram's fix-it list."
"Well, a cool shower would do the trick, too, on a day like this." Elvira emptied her bucket, then Kathryn's, and put them away under the sink. "Though the temperature'll be droppin' off, soon enough."
Kathryn smiled. She took a pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator, filled two glasses and handed one to Elvira.
"You know something the weatherman doesn't? According to him, this heat wave's going to last through the weekend."
"Weatherman's wrong." The older woman took a long sip of tea as she peered out the window at the sky. "A storm's comin' in, goin' to blow the heat clear back to Grenada."
Kathryn looked out the window, too. She saw a blazing sun, a placid sky, and one puffy, Norman Rockwell cloud.
"Wishful thinking."
"You'll see. Storm'll be here by tonight."
"Well, I'd like to think you're right, but this morning's forecast was for at least another day of the same misery."
"Sure. But I've been livin' on this island all my life, listenin' to what it wants to tell me. And it tells me that if you're wise, you'll close this house up good and tight before you go to bed." Elvira finished the last of her tea and put the glass in the sink. "You might even want to come into town for the night."
"My money's on the weatherman. Besides, even if he's wrong, I'm not afraid of a little rain." A slight flush rose on Kathryn's cheeks. "I
admit, it upset me last time, but I wasn't used to this house then."
"I wasn't thinkin' of that, Kathryn, I was thinkin' that this storm's goin' to be a lot more than rain."
Kathryn patted the older woman's arm. "I'll be fine," she said. "Really, don't worry about me."
* * *
By early evening, it was obvious she'd put her money on the wrong forecaster.
Elvira was right. A storm was brewing. The signs were right out there, easy to read even if you were a city person who never noticed much beyond whether or not it was raining.
Kathryn had managed enough hot water for a shower, not a bath, and then she'd made herself a light early supper of fruit, cheese and coffee and taken it out to the terrace.
By the time she'd finished eating, the weather was beginning to change.
The sky had turned a metallic shade of blue that exaggerated the bright glare of a sun so orange it was harsh enough to hurt the eyes. When she walked around to the front of the house and looked down at the sea, she noticed that it had taken on a glassy sheen. Light swells moved with lazy ease towards the beach while grey clouds clustered like a dirty ruff on the distant horizon.
The melancholy cry of a sea gull pierced the silence. Kathryn lifted her head and followed the bird's flight. It was heading inland, and for an uneasy couple of seconds she thought about Elvira's suggestion that she do the same.
But why? She'd already survived a storm at Charon's Crossing, and this one would be easier to endure. Hiram had secured the shutters so she wouldn't have to jump at the sound of them banging, should the wind pick up. And she wasn't about to get hysterical if the lights went out this time, now that she knew that her "intruder" was a ghost who'd decided to make himself scarce.
Charon's Crossing (A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel) Page 25
